San Francisco — A latest study suggests that Yahoo could be outstandingly winning the battle with archrival Google in the free web analytics market, despite Google’s success in the small and medium sized business market, Yahoo Web Analytics surpasses its rival in several areas, and is a better fit for enterprises than Google Analytics, according to the CMS Watch Web Analytics Report 2009.
This is, of course, an unexpected bombshell, considering that the analytics service provided by Yahoo! is younger than Google’s: Yahoo! Web Analytics was came in to being in 2008, after the acquisition of IndexTools. Yahoo! Web Analytics has also better features than Google, as it is obvious if
you compare the related links above.
The report measures twenty web analytics platforms against twelve potential use-cases. Out of the web analytics platform 7 are Saas only: Coremetrics, Digital River’s Fireclick, Google Analytics, Intellitracker Enterprise R6, Nedstat’s Sitestat, Omniture SiteCatalyst and Yahoo! Web Analytics.
Nevertheless Google Analytics has established an unprecedented customer base among SMB website owners, Yahoo!’s emerging Web Analytics service surpasses Google in several key categories relevant to enterprises, according to new research by independent analyst firm, CMS Watch.
“Google Analytics made a name for itself by offering a no-cost, easy-to-use service,” explained CMS Watch contributing analyst Phil Kemelor, “but it is no longer the only free analytics game in town.”
Areas where Yahoo excels over Google according to CMS Watch include:
Yahoo’s product offers much better access control options, simpler multi-site analytics capabilities and longer historical availability of raw data, said the report. It also provides larger default monthly page-view limits than Google Analytics, and the ability to export raw, un-aggregated data if required.
“Savvier enterprise customers explained that their concerns about data access and migration, especially in the absence of effective data verification services, made them queasy about signing on with Google,” said CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne.
However, there are still concerns regarding Yahoo! — most importantly the absence of 24/7 customer support, but Yahoo! was never a customer support champion, so this issue will probably stay fluid. Another drawback is that Yahoo! Web Analytics is only being offered to Yahoo! Small Business customers who host e-commerce sites with Yahoo!, and to advertisers who work with Yahoo! Custom Solutions and Yahoo! Buzz Marketing.
Besides, despite the better analytics platform, Yahoo! still lacks features that could make it a perfect fit for all enterprise level needs:
“Ultimately, for some enterprises, neither Google nor Yahoo! make a good fit,” explained Byrne, “and those buyers should consider fee-based web analytics solutions.”