The artist formerly known as … no, not Prince! Indextools! What Urchin Tracker is for Google is Indextools for Yahoo. The integration of Indextools into the Yahoo look and feel seems to be finished. Here are my ten reasons for using Yahoo! Analytics instead of Google Analytics:
- Competition: Google Analytics has a very large marketshare already. I just hate monopolies as they slow down innovation.
- External campaign tracking: A million times better. External campaigns can be identified by URL parameters or referrer so that merchants can create an overview of all marketing activities (affiliate programs, direct campaigns, search).
- Internal campaign tracking: An internal tracking system can measure the effectiveness of every single banner on every page.
- Custom reports: The reporting and customization capabilities of Yahoo! Analytics are a hundred times better.
- Path analysis: You can follow the complete click path on your sites. Google only offers the pre-defined funnel analysis.
- Scenario analysis: Much more customizable than Google’s goals with many more filter options too.
- Email reports: You can schedule regular reports by email with a lot more options for customization.
- Data protection: Google has too much data already.
- Server location: As far as I remember servers are located in Hungary where the government can’t access your stuff that easily.
- Price: It’s free as well.