Who can help on web analytics?
Putting People First needs better web analytics (or statistics).
So I would like to know what free or paid online programmes exist and how they perform. I tried StatCounter and looked at Google Analytics (which is by invitation only). Does anyone have experience with these or other programmes? What can you recommend?
UPDATE – 24 April 2006
Based on some of your input, I am currently experimenting with Performancing (which has a great-looking Java interface) and Logdy (which provides more detailed statistics). Both are really new — Performancing was launched in November, Logdy in March. If any of you has some experience with these services, please contact me.
Google Analytics and StatCounter are good for a first run at web analytics but once you start to understand the power of your data and want even more nuggets of information its probably time to upgrade to a paid solution.
There are two types of web analytics, hosted solutions which use page tags and in-house solutions which can use both page tags and log files.
I would suggest an in-house application like Unica NetTracker which I have a bit of experience with. The beauty is that it can process log files and page tags but also I don’t have to rely on a service provider giving me the right reports. Its just had a new release which looks amazing with some really user friendly features like drag and drop.
Oh, and also it’s not too expensive for small e-commerce site or consultants :-)
Matt Hopkins
Web Analytic Matt