Anything better than Google Analytics?

by Dennis Cheesman

Posted: 16 years ago 14 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hey Warriors,

I'm just starting to track my sites via the Google Analytics and was wondering if it is the best?

Or is there something out there better for tracking?

I appreciate any help...

Dennis Cheesman

#analytics #google

Jeffrey Louis 16 years ago

Why pay for something else that works well for free?
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- Steve Steinitz 16 years ago
  
  Hi Dennis,
  
  I have 26 sites so I had to do too much clicking in Google Analytics to see what was going on. I played with statcounter.com which shows more than one site per page but wasn't happy with it (not enough info). In the end my friend and I built our own php-based multi-site tracker. We might offer it for sale or as a service someday. I know that doesn't help you much now. But...
  
  Here's the idea for anyone game enough to roll their own: each site has one line about 3/4 inch tall, it shows today's uniques, yesterday's uniques, percent change, past 7 days, previous 7 days, percent change, past 30 days, previous 30 days, percent change. It also shows two top keyphrases for each time frame and a small, dual-moving-average graph.
  
  Under the hood it reports robots and sends 'bad' robots away. My friend is vigilent in identifying 'bad' robots. It has other detailed reports that I never look at.
  
  I like looking at my whole 'empire' at a glance. Though I despair when the graphs start to trend down
  
  Our extravaganza aside, Google Analytics is quite nice and you wouldn't go wrong using it. For simple reports that don't require installing any javascript, just enable awstats for each of your sites on your host.
  
  Steve
  
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  1 reply
  
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  sparrow 16 years ago
  
  I created my own, I just hate giving Google anymore information than it needs
  
  many of you don't mind this but in the long run this will all hurt you
  
  besides what I am looking for Google does not show the results in particular the bots
  
  Ed
  
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  crystalq 16 years ago
  
  you can try crazyegg.com I heard they were good
  or mybloglog they track where your clicks came from
  and what links they clicked.
  
  Thanks
  
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Jesus Perez 16 years ago

Here's a free open source platform that's making waves. It resides on your own servers.

Piwik - Web analytics - Open source
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- Noah Fleming 16 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by BlueSquares
  
  Here's a free open source platform that's making waves. It resides on your own servers.
  
  Piwik - Web analytics - Open source
  
  Piwik looks very interesting. I've never heard of it until today. I like the idea of it being open source. There might certainly be some uses here for developers to tie this into programs.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  Talltom1 16 years ago
  
  For me, I've been a dedicated WebCEO user for a very long time. They have a completely comprehensive web analytics, keyword research, website uptime monitoring, links analysis, and traffic reports in one very nice package. This package is far beyond GA, and it's 9.95US per month. If you are serious about IM, you want to go this route.
  Talltom
  
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peteranswers 16 years ago

Google Analytics is good and is always getting better, don't know why you wouldn't use them.
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Michael Forey 16 years ago

I like woopra.com. It is still in beta, but it works great and is free. It has the same basic information as analytics but it real time!

Mike
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- davemiz 16 years ago
  
  GA was once a $5k service, (urchin) its a very high end system.
  
  oh and now its free.
  
  Thanks
  
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dcmarketer 16 years ago

One thing I have noticed with Google Analytics is that if you install it on a website for the first time, that website is going to take a hit in it's search engine rankings - meaning they will drop for at least 3-4 weeks.

This might be hard to notice unless you're currently ranking the top 10 for your primary targeted keyword terms but I have witnessed it on at least 3 different occasions.

We had a site floating in position 1-3 for our primary keyword phrase and after installing the Analytics code it dropped right down into the 20-30 range for at least 3 weeks. It came back up after that because it is the leading site in it's industry. I should mention that before we put the code on the site had held these raknings for at least 12 months with no such major fluxuations.

Another entirely different site has done the exact same thing and has yet to rebound - I actually never put the code on the site but deleted the domain from Analytics after the drop. It has been 3 weeks now so hopefully it will come back in considering Google actually has no data related to the site for comparison.

A few non-conclusive ideas as to why...

* Google wants you to purchase traffic via adwords (and have all of the tracking / conversion features to do that built right into Analytics) so they send you down the SERP line to encourage it at least temporarily.

* You are being benchmarked against other sites in your industry using Analytics so big G now has a direct comparison against your competitors. They can see how you stack up directly to them in terms of bounce rate, length of time on site, etc. So now they can see with clarity the better "more sticky" site and now (or in the future) assume that is the better site to send their visitors too and adjust their search results (and your position within them) accordingly.

I haven't seen anyone talk about what I am here and would be interested to know if others have seen this happen also, but for the second possibility alone I would stay away from Analytics. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what they are currently doing (or will in the future) with all of this information... particularly watching their alogo development since the late 90's.

Best...

Duncan
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AlexKaplo 16 years ago

I like Google analytics but I'm pretty sure you can find something much more advance if you search around well around the internet.

I run multiples PPC campaigns and PPC campaigns a lot of my clients and I need a way to test and see what is converting and I still use analytics because it does a great job linking adwords with it!

Regards,

-Alex Kaplo
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johnsamuels 16 years ago

there is omniture which is better, but GA is the best you'll get for free. omniture is also probably not better than GA by enough to justify the price. the more you learn about GA the better you will get at using it.
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