I have used Google Analytics for a while now, along with a lot of the other webmaster applications, but Google Analytics is just amazing. I have never bothered to use half of the features within it, after reading some articles on the Internet over the past week I can now see how underestimated I saw it to be. What more could you ask for? I have made good use from the AdSense tracking modification - although I personally think it should be prebuilt in. Surely this online application must of won some awards? I mean, it has all the tracking and trend tools you could possibly need, and best of all (like most of Google's services) it's FREE!
I find the time delay intensely annoying. I'd rather use something like statcounter that's in real time.
What??? Are you crazy? 24-hours is not long to recieve all those useful statistics. I suppose it's whatever floats your boat.
I go with magda... 24 hours delay may not matter you much but for some organizations/persons it matters alot... Even i go for stat counter or any other tool which gives a live update... you can get a lot of tools ( Not free) where you can get all the features of google analytics + LIVE updates unlike google.... This is purely my view....
Yea have to agree that Google Analytics rocks! I'm using it on 2 of my sites and gets very detailed statistics which I love
I find that every stats program I use has different ideas about the traffic to my site. Analytics has one amount, then the Awstats has another, then Wordpress stats has another and Firestats has another. I am thinking I like stats a lot, but never trust any 100%
It's great, but as a couple others noted; it's best when used with a counter that updates more regularly
I have to agree that the information it provides is awesome. But, I notice that it goes down a lot and will not provide statistics for a day here and there. Kinda annoying when you are tracking trends. I have not seen it do this as much with the new version, so hopefully these problems are a thing of the past! Can't beat the price tag though and it's very quick and easy to read....
Unless you're running huge ad campaigns and need instant feedback, I don't see why the reporting delay would be an issue.
But awstats tracking tool is not free unlike Google analytics right? anyway it's up to you what tracking tool you must have to used....
Google Analytics looses a lot of data! Unlike the other free statistics providers, G Analytics doesn't show all the visitors, page views, etc... That is quite annoying...
well, google analytics and statcounter are free to use that is why it is very convenient for us to use it. Why arguing which one of each is the best? Why don't we just use those two at the same time and decide whether which of those tools best satisfy us? For me, those two tools are great.
When I first started using analytics I was truly amazed at the amount of data it collected, almost feeling sorry for the hard working servers
GoStats is a great alternative too. Worth try out even if just for the real-timeness of the reports. (much better data retention that statcoutner anway)