Web Analytics: Google Drops Charge

Google has announced that it will give customers free use of its web analytics service. Formerly known as Urchin from Google and now renamed Google Analytics, the service claims to give customers the ability 'to track the results of any online marketing campaign', and offers dashboard features and integration with other packages.

Google bought Urchin at the end of March this year (Web Analytics Pioneers Snapped Up www.mrweb.com/drno/news3932.htm ) and dropped the price on 3rd May from $495 a month to $199 per month. It now describes the service as 'simple enough for businesses new to web analytics to get started quickly, and sophisticated enough for the most advanced online marketers'. The free service includes integration with Google AdWords, automatically tagging keyword destination URLs and importing cost data for ROI reports - it claims to be 'able to track the results of any online marketing campaign, including banner ads, referral links, email newsletters, and organic and paid search'. It also offers new reporting dashboards for three key groups: executive, marketer, webmaster; and global reach - it is immediately available in 16 languages including Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Korean and the major European tongues.

The service runs on the same computing infrastructure that powers Google.com so it can support the traffic demands of any site, from those with a few visitors a week to hundreds of millions.

'We want to give all online marketers and publishers access to powerful web analytics to help them better understand what their customers want' says Paul Muret, Google Engineering Director and one of the founders of Urchin. 'By making this powerful service free, we aim to give all web sites - large and small - the tools they need to better serve their customers, make more money, and improve the web experience for everyone.'

Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The analytics service is profiled at www.google.com/analytics . The industry now has its own association, formed this year: the Web Analytics Association (WAA) is online at www.webanalyticsassociation.org.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.