Google Sticks it to Web Analytics Companies with New Free Website Analytics

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

You could almost hear the howls of pain today as Google unveiled Google Analytics, a free version analystic package that used to cost most serious websites an arm and a leg. As most people know, when you’re ready to move beyond the free SiteMeter style web tracking most bloggers rely on, and start doing some serious deeps dives on your Web log data, it used to mean a costly analytics package like WebTrends (that’s what we use at work.)

Not so any longer.

In March, Google acquired San Diego-based Urchin Software Corporation and promptly lowered the monthly cost of the company’s hosted Web analytics service, Urchin On Demand, from $495 to $199. Today, the search company is re-branding Urchin under the name Google Analytics and making it available to everyone for nothing.

According to Eric Peterson, a senior analyst at JupiterResearch, competing enterprise Web analytics vendors charge anywhere from several hundred dollars annually to millions of dollars per year for complex, high-traffic installations. Source: Yahoo News

We Say: Great for the little guy, but a major “Ouch” for the vendors in this space. They were always beyond overpriced anyway, but this move is starting to cement Google’s position as the new and scary Microsoft of the software world. This is only the beginning.