Google.com is offering a new, free web stats service called Google Analytics. This is good news for webmasters who still have yet to decide on (or learn about) web stats software.
Here's how it works. You start by signing up for a free Google Analytics account. Then you place a piece of JavaScript in the header of the page you want to track. Lastly, you can log in to the service and access your logs. They've also incorporated a special feature that tracks your traffic driven by Google AdWords, email marketing blasts, or banners on other sites.
The analysis can supposedly be accessed 12 hours after you plug the JavaScript into your page, but users are reporting that they still haven't received any statistics up to thirty hours later. Maybe Google underestimated the popularity of such a service? They're keeping quiet for the time being.
If you've been following Google's actions recently, you'll remember that the company bought a statistics software producer named Urchin back in March of this year. Urchin's web stats software service sold for $499 per month. When Google took over, they reduced the service to $199 per month. And now it's free. Hopefully, we won't see a huge fallout within the web stats software industry, or else Google will be making some enemies awfully fast.
