Back in March 2005, Google purchased the popular web analytics company Urchin and from there, Google as we all know launched Google Analytics. For the majority of my sites and clients sites, Google Analytics is used, and from there Google’s analytics is incorporated into the hosted ranking software that we use. This integration is helpful.
If you are looking for some alternative and free options to Google analytics, you may want to check into the open source options below.
Open Web Analytics (OWA) – is open source web analytics software that you can use to track and analyze how people use your websites and applications. Check out their demo and examples. From the initial login and looking around at the reports. The data available looks very impressive. Over the next couple of months, I will be giving this a test drive on one of my own websites. Ah, the testing!
Piwik – a downloadable, Free/Libre (GPLv3 licensed) real time web analytics software. providing detailed reports on your website visitors; the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, your popular pages, and much more. Piwik is a PHP/MySQL software program that you download and install on your own web server. At the end of the five minute installation process you will be given a JavaScript tracking code. Simply copy and paste this tag to any websites you wish to track (or use an existing plugin to do it automatically for you) and access your analytics reports in real time.
Gerard Manning is the owner of Manning Search Marketing and has been working in the SEO industry since 2000. Originally started with Enquiro Search Solutions (now known as Mediative). Was previously a Research Assistant on Inside the Mind of the Searcher that was released in 2005.