From those of us who were two days late hearing about the release of Google Analytics I say, “When will Google Analytics be available again!?!” If you haven’t heard than let me be the first to tell you. Google recently purchased a web stats company called Urchin. Urchin used to be a payed for service and Google made it free. They released it November 15,2005 and closed it to new sign ups November 17, 2005. Their site claims that you are able to track all incoming links, where people get stuck on your pages, AdSense keyword-click through and conversion words, countries, outgoing links, time spent, etc, etc, etc. More information than you get in some payed services supposedly.
Now it is closed to those of us who are not regularly reading the press releases and nobody is talking over at Googleplex about when it will be available again. Although they claim they are beefing up servers and bandwidth I have been unable to find out any information as to when they will open up to new members again. Let me be the first to tell them this might be bad for business. They do realize that Microsoft has now entered the realm of the online advertising and marketing world with both guns blazing, right? If Google is going to stay in the game, buying out a smaller company and then closing what I hear was a great service isn’t the best way to garner support; even if it is free.
From what I have managed to pick up Google Analytics will not be available for a while. Maybe Costco ran out of servers or Google’s web hosting company isn’t having a sale on bandwidth this month. Either way, I have scoured the forums, searched the press releases, Googled the crap out of “When will Google Analytics be available again,” only to find nothing.
So with that I have begun to search for alternative web stat counters for my web pages. If you haven’t been following me I recently (November 11, 2005) jumped into the online world with both feet. Don’t get me wrong, I have started websites before for school, and some for pleasure, but never really kept anything going. Well, I was inspired by a great blog and am now focused on becoming independently wealthy. I am also in the process accomplishing many other goals that I set for myself but never strove to meet.
All of these are free web stat counters which I have tinkered with at some point or another. I like some of them and others I don’t, below I review each and tell you what I think.
ALTERNATIVES TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS
1. StatCounter.com – Free for up to 250,000 page views per month. After that they have payed upgrades. For those of you just starting out this is a great service. Very extensive web stats and can be used on multiple sites (just free to a total of 250K page views.) They offer a summary with page loads (impressions), unique, and returning visitors. They also have countless stats to help optimize your page; entry pages, exit pages, popular pages, referrals, keyword analysis, search engine referrals, country/state/city/ISP, browser, visit length, and a few more random stats. Visit length and exit pages are great stats that can help you optimize your page to keep visitors hanging around.
The layout is easy to navigate although I would like more information on the summary page, possibly a customize option. Currently each option above has its own page, (by the way this is a great way to increase page impressions on your site, thus increasing Google AdSense revenue.)
Overall I recommend this stat counter to anyone who is just starting out their website or if you are looking for an in depth analysis of your visitors, for free. The “freeness” is due to the discrete Google Ads at the top of the page.
2. AddFreeStats.com- Don’t be fooled. AddFreeStats.com is not free of ads. You can just add it to your site for free. (I looked quickly and missed the second “d” in ad.)The site is supported by Google AdSense placed on every stat page right in the middle of your viewing window, super. The service does have one nice feature that StatCounter.com does not have, Google AdSense Click through (or link out.) It will tell you which ads were clicked on. This is a great way to optimize your AdSense Keywords and AdSense placement.
Like StatCounter.com they have a plethora of stats such as visit length, referral, search engines keywords, entry pages, exit pages, etc, etc. If you are monetizing your web site or blog then this is a great free counter for you with the added AdSense tracking. Other than that the ads they use are kind of annoying. But I am assuming they are paying for the fact that it seems to get you unlimited page loads (Also a great thing!)
For an ad supported free unlimited counter use this one, it has the most. You’ll get used to the ads, don’t worry.
3. ActiveMeter.com – This is another free hit counter offering a detailed analysis of visitors to your web pages. Their look is very clean, and their graphs are similar to that of what I have seen with Google Analytics. Their stats aren’t quite as extensive as the first two hit counters but they do offer unlimited page views which the first one does not. Also they do not have blaring ads on their site which is another plus.
Like StatCounter.com they don’t offer AdSense analysis. Another big thing ActiveMeter doesn’t offer that I find useful is length of visit. To me this is very interesting.
Overall ActiveMeter is a middle of the road free stat counter and analyzer. I suggest it for those of you looking for more extensive stats than the small time hit counters and not all the bells and whistles of the first two mentioned.
4. RiteCounter.com – RiteCounter.com is another middle of the road free analyzer that offers a wide variety of stats analyses. This is a newer counter to the mix and is in its beta version. It is free of course and ad supported by none other than Google AdSense ads. The nice thing about this stats counter is that it looks heavily into the links that your site receives. This can be very helpful when trying to figure out where the heck people are coming from. Knowing that information you can then try and get links from similar content or it can even drive the focus of your content.
Being a newer counter it doesn’t offer all the bells and whistles of others out there but it does have a clean interface and the ads are off to the side.
Less Involved Hit Counters and Stat Analysis Sites
Those already mentioned give a great analysis of a lot of different visitors stats. The following are some that are basically just hit counters and are of course free. Some have a minor stat analysis but nothing like the previous four.
1. Blogclicker Hit Counter – quite a few stats, easy to view all
2. Amazing Counters – few web stats
3. TDStats.com – very generic looking
4. WebCounter.com – lots of stats but low budget looking, has an affiliate program?
5. MyWebStats – fun looking page with a few stats, nothing cluttered
6. RoboCounter – simple hit counter
7. Free-Easy-Counters.com – another simple hit counter
There are lots more out there than I mentioned here. Hopefully Google Analytics will open up its services again sometime soon. If anyone hears anything feel free to leave me a comment. I would really like to know what’s going on over there and I’m sure others would too.
Happy Statistics Browsing.
Hi,
Thanks for reviewing ActiveMeter. Just wanted to mention that we agree with you the length of visit is important and have always had that data in AM. We can also track adsense or any other PPC by coding the links from the ad, by appending an identifier to the link.
As for Google Analytics, opening up again, it will take more than servers and bandwidth or that would have been done already. We think the code needs to be tweaked seriously, to accomodate the scale tscale they have to deal with, especially if they want to get anywhere close to real-time data. Their stats are running 2-3 days behind apparently.
Just found your page while Googling about when their analytics software will open up again.
Since December I have been actively pursuing the PPC side of my business.
I, like you, desperately need a good low cost (read “free”) program to help track my ROI.
Great blog btw.