· October 16, 2008 at 5:20 am · Web Development
Looks like Yahoo is following Google into the web analytics game. If you visit http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ you will see that IndexTools is now well, Yahoo! Web Analytics. What was Index Tools? I don’t know either.
They are promising a powerful and flexible web site stats package. Not much is known yet due to the only thing we have to go by is the web site. I am excited to see that they are promising to get detailed reporting within minutes after and action occurs on your web site. With other similar tools, you usually have to wait till the next day to get the best results. Other features include:
- Dashboards
- Custom Reports
- Advanced Campaign Management
- Real-Time Segmentation
- Scenario Analysis… and more!
So when can you sign up for this new tool? Yahoo! Web Analytics will be made available to a wide range of Yahoo!’s customers, partners, developers and advertisers in stages throughout the rest of 2008 and into 2009.
Maybe my glass is half full, but I am excited about giving this a shot.
· October 9, 2008 at 5:53 am · Web Development
I have been using Google Analytics since its debut, and love it as a stats tool. I probably use it more than I have any tools built into a hosting account. Some people might be overwhelmed by some of the terms though, so to break it down I thought I would take a look at the first thing you see, the Site Usage section.
Visits - In Google Analytics, visits are the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to your site.
Pageviews - With Pageviews, these are defined as a view of a page (inside of your web site) that is being tracked.
Pages/Visits - This number is an average of how many pages your average viewer are checking out inside of your site at a single time.
Bounce Rate - Once of the more confusing stats, it is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. The lower the number, the better you are doing.
Avg. Time on Site - Ok, maybe this one doesn’t need to be explained. It is the average time a visitor spends on your web site in a single session. The longer, the better (in most cases).
% New Visits - This is a comparison of new visitors with old visitors. It is always good to bring new people into the fold, but you also want to make sure you give people something to come back for.
Now, at least, you have a better idea of what those numbers mean to your web site you are tracking. Need help getting Google Analytics setup for your site? WebHostingShow.com has a great guide on how to get started.
