Web Site Analytics and Tracking

The last couple of months I've looked at a few solutions to tracking my sites, and only two of them stood out. So I'll list those two here with a review of both!

Google Analytics seems to be the best free package out there. It's Free, Reliable, has loads of Features, and if you sign up for a google account you also get WebMaster tools with it.

Google Analytics really has a lot of features like Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reports, Customizing your Dashboard, Benchmarking against other sites of similar size, Adwords integration, and almost too many to mention. So it's a solid platform but can be quite overwhelming at first. You can also add as many sites as you want under one account, which really saves time. 

Adding it to your site is as easy as signing up for a free account on Google, and adding a small piece of JavaScript code to every page you want to track. The downside however is that if the person's browser blocks JS, it won't register on Google Analytics.

There is a delay of a few hours however so it's not "live" tracking, this is where Woopra comes in ;)

Woopra is my personal favorite! Yes it's still in beta testing and not that reliable now, but it's so much jucier than Google Analytics! You can view each visitors path in your site. It also has a really nice Live Map of all the people currently on your site and allows you to see excatly what page they are on.

It also gives all the normal features you would expect like referrers and Search keywords used to find your site. It's free but you may have to wait for a beta tester account. Try it at http://www.woopra.com

Woopra does however have a few bugs currently and also shares in GA's weakness in that it relies on JavaScript to function properly.

They are ready to release 1.3 RC2 which will address a lot of bugs and add new features, and honestly I can't wait!! So go on over there and check it out!

Google Analytics is definitely the more reliable, safe option. In my opinion, since they both are free, why not try both? Woopra is still tops in my books and it's really going to change the face of Visitor tracking and Analytics!

Go, have fun and share your thoughts!