Google has taken the beta label off yet another project that is significantly younger than Gmail, which remains in beta. Google Website Optimizer has been available to AdWords customers for the past year, but now the company is making it available to anyone who wants to test out different web site layouts.
Basically, the tool lets web publishers try out different designs on their web page to see which one performs best. Want to see which ad unit is more likely to get people to click? Want to see which RSS icon is more likely to get people to subscribe to your site's feed? Google Website Optimizer will let you set up an experiment and track the results.
A few days ago Yahoo! announce it was purchasing IndexTools, a powerful web analytics suite that rivals similar applications from Google and Microsoft. Now IndexTools COO reports that the plan is to offer IndexTools free of charge. That's the good news.
The bad news is that for now, the free service will only be available to existing clients and partners who accept the new terms of service. Yahoo! won't be accepting new users until it rolls out the next version of the application and it's still too early to know when that will take place.
Eventually the free service could offer some serious competition for Google Analytics, one of the most popular free tools for web publishers who want to track reader statistics and optimize their advertising.
Yahoo! will integrate IndexTools with its current analytic tools to help build the company's advertising network. The services will first be available to members of the Yahoo! ad network, but eventually the company plans to build a system that will let third party developers "monitor and optimize the traffic performance" of web applications.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of the year. The terms of the acquisition were not released.
There's no shortage of packages for tracking statistics on visitors to your blog or web site. But we have to say, Woopra looks like it could blow the competition out of the water. That's because it offers real-time stats tracking, showing you a list of who's on your site right now, where they came from, and what they're looking at. And if they've left comments or otherwise identified themselves to Woopra, you can check out their user profiles and even send them an invitation to chat in real-time while they're visiting your site.
The service is currently in beta, but the plan is to make it available free of cost to Linux, Mac, and Windows users. You can sign up for a free account today, but you might have to wait a little while for Woopra to approve your web site. The developers are still working on scaling the system to support a large number of accounts.
Google, reigning king of exhaustive analytics, has just released a specialized analytics tool for YouTube, aptly named YouTube Insight.
YouTube Insight is a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about their uploaded videos. In other words, if you've ever wondered who is watching your latest solo diatribe about the benefits of Proactiv Solution (we were wondering that too...), that information is now one click away.
YouTube Insight tracks information such as the geographic region of your viewers, how popular your video is relative to other videos in a similar market, and more.
The currently available data can be found by clicking under the "About this Video" button under My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos. Look for much more data to be added in the future.
Of course, this isn't just for the Mentos and Diet Coke uploaders. Eventually, as YouTube becomes more monetized, these same metrics will provide valuable data to partners and advertisers, so that they can adjust their marketing to reach the viewers they most desire.
Google has quietly announced some new features for Analytics, its web tracking tool. They seem small, but these additional tracking features will provide much greater insight into what is going on your website since you can't always peer over visitors' shoulders to watch.
The updates include:
Site Search Tracking - Users will now be able to tell exactly what keywords visitors searched for on your site, and where these searches end up.
Event Tracking - Currently in a limited beta test, these website reports will show how users interact with various multimedia aspects on your site, including flash and Ajax without messing with pageview metrics.
Outbound link Tracking - Also in a limited beta test rolling out in the next few weeks, reports will show what links website visitors click on that direct them to an outside site.
If you have a website, and don't already have the free Google Analytics code installed, you are missing out on understanding how your visitors move around, how they interact with your content and how they got there in the first place. Google Analytics not only provides insight on how people navigate, but it also aids in targeting site content towards what people enjoy. It's easy to set up, free and Analytics reports are super simple to understand.
Google might currently have the hottest ad network around, but that hasn't stopped the competition from nibbling at the search giants heels.
Yahoo has announced that they will be acquiring the fifth largest online advertising network for $300 million. BlueLithium specializes in tracking consumer behavior as they move from site to site in order to serve more relevant ads, something Google is strongly opposed to. BlueLithium is only a three year old company, and has an impressive client list comprising of AT&T, T Mobile, Dell, Chase, Verizon, WalMart, AOL and Best Buy.
This deal is said to allow Yahoo! the ability extend their powerful analytical reports, provide advanced targeting and create innovative media buying strategies.
If you're creating websites, you'll probably know about Google Analytics, the once-expensive now-free web statistics service from the big G. Whilst you could, of course, log in to Google Analytics via the Analytics (recently-upgraded) website, it might seem like overkill to go to the hassle of logging in just to check visitor numbers.
Thankfully, Mac users can rejoice because Dashalytics allows you check visitor numbers, referrer sources and a fair amount more all from your Dashboard. Version 3 of Dashalytics came out just last week (with 3.0.1 being released today), so if you're wanting a hassle-free way to see just who's sending you all that traffic, this might be the very ticket.
Understanding where your traffic is coming from is one of the major components to being able to optimize content for a better experience for users. Having a good analytics package is key, whether its Google's free Analytics or a visually stimulating package like CrazyEgg. Throw some confetti on it, and what do you get?
CrazyEgg is well known for their visual approach to analytics. Their free offering makes its easy for website owners to get a quick look at where visitors are clicking and how they are navigating through a website with the use of heatmaps, overlays, and now with some confetti. With the analytical Confetti view, users get a better understanding how visitors interact with their website. Visitor interaction can be sorted based on referrers, search terms, operating systems, browser, time before clicks and window size in a colorful easy to understand view.
Crazy Egg is a free analytics service, with an upgrade package available. Installation is through a simple javascript line added to webpages that you want to track.
Google has just added an update to its popular small business Mini search tool that lets users plug into Google Analytics for tracking. With this new integration, Google Mini owners can now add Google Analytics tracking codes into data, enabling better tracking and analyzing of search results. This new understanding of what visitors are searching for will allow for the discovery of how little tweaks and changes can be made to satisfy visitors, helping them find the information they have requested faster. I have not had a chance to play with the administrator account on the Mini, but Google does say that it is a simple procedure for administrators to configure the Mini to use Google Analytics. Simply set the Analytics account number inside of the admin interface. The output formats for the search results will supposedly automatically include the JavaScript that Analytics uses.
Do you have a website? Would you like to track your visitors' behavior? Cogentoo can help you out. Similar to Crazyegg, Cogentoo tracks web site visitors with a heatmap, which is a quick and easy way for site owners to visualize user clicks. Cogentoo data is tracked in real time with a JavaScript code implanted into your pages. The heat map uses a spectrum of color thresholds to represent the density of clicks the area is receiving. Cogentoo also has a Point Map report as well. The heat map helps site owners understand the density of clicks, while the point map reports clicks more accurately. Now, we all know the benefits of good analytics, so go check out the free beta now.
Google has released its online analytics software to anyone that wants to use it to interact with their website.
Google Analytics lets users track visitors, identify navigational issues, track keywords, and where visitors are coming from. Analytics will also tie into your Google AdWords account and let you know how visitors found your site, where they came from, how they were referred, and measure your total AdWords campaign effectiveness.
Google also has a "Conversion University". A place where Analytics users can go to read up on marketing and content optimization tips from industry experts. Current new articles in the University include Increasing Conversions with Internal Search and Monitoring Visitor Conversion.
Google Analytics is simple to set up. Log in using your Google Account ID, and enter the domain you want to monitor first. Multiple domains can be added later. A code snippet has to be added to the end of all HTML pages that you wish to monitor. Google Analytics displays a nice dashboard with Executive, Conversion, Marketing, and Content summaries, as well as Marketing Optimization, and Content Optimization reports. I am currently testing it out, and so far so good. It is easily a welcome addition to your current tracking software.
According to eWeek's Google Watch blog, Microsoft announced it has made a "significant" investment in web traffic analysis firm DeepMetrix. DeepMetrix provides a eerily similar service to that now being provided by Google's Analytics. According to eWeek, DeepMetrix's data will eventually be injected into most (if not all) online services from Microsoft. Real time analysis is a powerful tool, and I'm a little surprised it took MS this long to get into the game. But it looks like Ballmer is making the moves to at least try and "kill" Google ... Time (and lots of real-time data) will tell...
Performancing, the people who brought you the Performancing blogging extension for
Firefox, have launched a new web service called Performancing Metrics that aims to provide "professional grade
blog statistics" for serious bloggers. Performancing Metrics can handle multiple blogs and will aggregate data
from all of your blogs, generates RSS feeds so you keep an eye on your stats easily, and shows AdSense data and search
engine traffic. It's entering a market currently occupied by Mint and, though it's not geared
specifically to blogs, Google Analytics. Performancing Metrics is
currently in a free, open beta period; no word on whether the service will still be free once it's out of beta.
A few days ago Yahoo! announce it was purchasing IndexTools, a powerful web analytics suite that rivals similar applications from Google and Microsoft. Now IndexTools COO reports that the plan is to offer IndexTools free of charge. That's the good news.
Google has quietly announced some new features for Analytics, its web tracking tool. They seem small, but these additional tracking features will provide much greater insight into what is going on your website since you can't always peer over visitors' shoulders to watch.
Google might currently have the hottest ad network around, but that hasn't stopped the competition from nibbling at the search giants heels.
Understanding where your traffic is coming from is one of the major components to being able to optimize content for a better experience for users. Having a good analytics package is key, whether its Google's free Analytics or a visually stimulating package like CrazyEgg. Throw some confetti on it, and what do you get?
Google has just added an update to its popular small business Mini search tool that lets users plug into Google Analytics for tracking. With this new integration, Google Mini owners can now add Google Analytics tracking codes into data, enabling better tracking and analyzing of search results. This new understanding of what visitors are searching for will allow for the discovery of how little tweaks and changes can be made to satisfy visitors, helping them find the information they have requested faster. I have not had a chance to play with the administrator account on the Mini, but Google does say that it is a simple procedure for administrators to configure the Mini to use Google Analytics. Simply set the Analytics account number inside of the admin interface. The output formats for the search results will supposedly automatically include the JavaScript that Analytics uses.
Google has released its online analytics software to anyone that wants to use it to interact with their website.
According to eWeek's Google Watch blog, Microsoft announced it has made a "significant" investment in web traffic analysis firm DeepMetrix. DeepMetrix provides a eerily similar service to that now being provided by Google's Analytics. According to eWeek, DeepMetrix's data will eventually be injected into most (if not all) online services from Microsoft. Real time analysis is a powerful tool, and I'm a little surprised it took MS this long to get into the game. But it looks like Ballmer is making the moves to at least try and "kill" Google ... Time (and lots of real-time data) will tell...
Performancing, the people who brought you the Performancing blogging extension for
Firefox, have launched a new web service called Performancing Metrics that aims to provide "professional grade
blog statistics" for serious bloggers. Performancing Metrics can handle multiple blogs and will aggregate data
from all of your blogs, generates RSS feeds so you keep an eye on your stats easily, and shows AdSense data and search
engine traffic. It's entering a market currently occupied by Mint and, though it's not geared
specifically to blogs, Google Analytics. Performancing Metrics is
currently in a free, open beta period; no word on whether the service will still be free once it's out of beta.
