Well frankly, it's (almost) only independent third party tracking software which can't be manipulated and personally I really don't like looking at people's AWStats or Webalizer screenshots. Those software are old, inaccurate and subjective to manipulation so therefore I'm thinking - why not define GA as default and mandatory traffic proof on that sub forum? Thanks
can't see this ever happening... you can't force people to use a specific stats program. As a buyer it would be up to them to check that the stats are going to be correct and it does not take to much effort. Get a screen shot of the keywords the site is found for, check results in search engines for said keywords and check something like adwords>keyword tool to see the number of searches (as a simple approach to checking whether the stats are correct).
Nice idea, but all those tinfoil hatters/scammers/spammers are too paranoid to use Google Analytics. There might be some genuine people who don't like it either. Domain and verification, on the other hand, is more realistic as mandatory for making a WTS thread.
I am thinking, why don't you follow your guidelines and not look at or buy those sites and let everyone else decide what metric they wish to use.
It's not that I don't, but those are technical facts which could rule out outdated/inaccurate software by default. So it's more like technical question directly related to business and trading than a matter of forcing anyone. Other than that, I can agree with everybody in this thread about choice/needed skill we each have while checking someone's website, but technical argument still stands, I'd say - software such as Webalizer and AWStats as opposed to GA (I used GA as example of widely accepted) is far behind and not giving real image of anything, plus - SERP check or similar is not always possible to apply to a website. I'm over due with my morning coffee, hope this makes some sense lol. Nevertheless, Shawn pointed out what I missed before and although it's not a direct solution for my suggestion, I'll gladly accept it as is. If you ever come to a point where you plan to make any changes to marketplace, maybe you remember this one Cheers.
There are a lot of changes in the works for the marketplace, but to be honest, making Google Analytics mandatory to sell a site just isn't realistic... Like others have pointed out, there may be legit reasons to not use Google Analytics... For example, apple.com and microsoft.com do not use Google Analytics. Not saying they would sell either domain here, but the point is that it doesn't always make sense to use GA, so not all sites do.