Google, Microsoft Web Analytics Clash
One area that Google and Microsoft will soon compete in is providing information to Internet-based businesses about traffic to their sites. Given that Microsoft is months away from introducing its own Web analytics facets, an actual head-to-head comparison between Microsoft and Google Analytics is impossible right now. But some corporate IT network managers are making it anyway, based on the information that's available about what Microsoft's doing. You see, Microsoft plans to enter this space using technology from Web analytics provider DeepMetrix, a well-established player with hundreds of major Web site customers. So there's something to line up against Google's own Google Analytics, which has been slowly winning a following among Web masters. Just who's winning? To place one company over another would be patently unfair at this point. Perhaps more important to note is that consumers are beginning to compare the two. Consider this head-to-head test documented by Mark Lowe, chief technology officer of Strategic Advantage. He wrote here that his firm was using DeepMetrix, but they could never properly install the system. He wrote that the firm then turned to Urchin, the software that Google now provides, "and it installed in minutes. We use Google Analytics ourselves and for our clients." Of course he's just one opinion, representing only one level of technical sophistication and one set of circumstances. And others out there are jumping for joy over Microsoft's choice of DeepMetrix, and pooh-pooh the limits that Google Analytics has on number of Web pages to examine. The only thing really certain at this point is there are going to be more opinions and comparisons of the two Web analytics features to come. |
Comments (11)
Ben, Interesting article. Where are you getting your information about people who "pooh-pooh the limits that Google Analytics has on number of Web pages to examine"? Google Analytics does not limit the number of pages you can track. There is a limit of 5 million pageviews if your account isn't linked to AdWords, but given that an AdWords account costs $5 to create if you don't have one already, that's not much of a barrier.
Posted by Caleb | May 12, 2006 5:15 PM
Since Google Analytics only monitors keywords on Google, isnt there a need for a credible third party analytics site that a client can use that can dashboard Google, Yahoo and Microsoft? After all who is policing the police? What about companies like Omniture and WebSideStory?
Posted by Sam Mitter | May 12, 2006 8:43 PM
Google analytics can moniter your keywords campaigns on Yahoo and Microsoft as well. Websidestory and Omniture are good but Google analytics is free and the other two are very expensive
Posted by wagamama | May 13, 2006 6:17 AM
The average Omniture implementation is $100,000 per year. Web Side Story is $40,000 per year. Google Analytics is FREE. Of course you cannot do a like-for-like comparison of the products, but the key features that customers want in a tool are all there in Google Analytics.
Posted by Jo | May 13, 2006 6:35 AM
Quote: >Where are you getting your information about >people who "pooh-pooh the limits that Google >Analytics has on number of Web pages to >examine"? Google Analytics does not limit the >number of pages you can track. My Google Analytics has only allowed me to track 5 separate domains so far. No limit on pages per se, but on the number of domains you can track, which as a web publisher we need many times 5 to really get the most out of it. I might add we buy thousands in adwords every month, so it's not like we aren't giving them business. I think from what I've read in other sources they may be coming across some scalability problems and hardware limitations. - IP
Posted by Industry_Pro | May 13, 2006 2:15 PM
The number of profiles is a temporary limit so that everyone (large and small users) can receive fast access to their reports. It in no-way effects the number page views you can track for each profile. The default number of profiles per account was 50 and I hear that should be back to normal soon.
Posted by Jo | May 14, 2006 6:07 AM
With Microsoft coming out with their own, this will hopefully benefit everyone. With the long waiting list for Google Analytics, Microsoft will have a chance to steal quite a few people if they can handle the traffic. Hopefully this will also force Google to up the amount of invitations they are sending out, or else they may lose out.
Posted by Rob | May 15, 2006 9:57 AM
Compition is good and the winners will be the consumers of that product so Microsoft putting pressure on Google may do the same thing that Google did to Microsoft and Yahoo... made them inovate.
Posted by Daniel Lawson | May 23, 2006 5:18 PM
Just because average cost of implementation is higher for Omniture doesn't mean it's more expensive than say WSS, it just means they have more enterprise level clients. If you run a website like ebay would you want Google Analytic? Can they support millions of page views per day? Who are you going to call when the tracking went down at 3am on a sunday night?
Posted by Sooner | May 23, 2006 9:12 PM
Watching this type of market over the last few years, continuously propels me to the same conclusion: generalized software will be harder and harder to compete with in a global internet market. in other words things like, website hosting and design (e.g. microsofts new hosting service), shopping cart software, site analytics (e.g. Omniture), email, site search tools, payment collection (e.g. paypal), or any type of tool that can basically help you run your business, etc... will become free--as a result of the opensource community as well as monopolistic players like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc... This will drive software developers (e.g. Omniture) into custom development for enterprise clients (e.g. Ebay), so they are not out of the count, but will lose potentially a good market share of shallower pocket clients (but if my web business makes 10 - 100 million a year, 100 k is not much if I think it can really offer some serious benefits). This will drive software developers to focus on niche markets, and niche products. It is inevitable. I just thought a minute ago how wikipedia will probably put Encyclopedia Britannica out of business relatively quickly. Open source and community efforts are in their infancy. I should know, every year I get new free tools, which were previously unavailable to help me run my business of selling brazilian jeans online. Google even says they have a partner network to provide meaningful business decision interpretations of data--a claimed advantage by omniture, although omniture is just announced they are going public--are they worried? maybe, maybe not. Urchin has always been cheap or free (e.g. if you host with Verio). centralized/aggregating software (e.g. adwords, ecommerce) with high security requirements will not fall into this trend as much.
Posted by eran | May 27, 2006 9:54 PM
please delete my previous post as it got chomped. a preview feature on your blog would help dumb users like me Watching this type of market over the last few years, continuously propels me to the same conclusion: generalized software will be harder and harder to compete with in a global internet market. in other words things like, website hosting and design (e.g. microsofts new hosting service), shopping cart software, site analytics (e.g. Omniture, email, site search tools, payment collection (e.g. paypal), or any type of tool that can basically help you run your business, etc... will become free--as a result of the opensource community as well as monopolistic players like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc... This will drive software developers (e.g. Omniture into custom development for enterprise clients (e.g. Ebay), so they are not out of the count, but will lose potentially a good market share of shallower pocket clients (but if my web business makes 10 - 100 million a year, 100 k is not much if I think it can really offer some serious benefits). This will drive software developers to focus on niche markets, and niche products. It is inevitable. I just thought a minute ago how wikipedia will probably put Encyclopedia Britannica out of business relatively quickly. Open source and community efforts are in their infancy. I should know, every year I get new free tools, which were previously unavailable to help me run my business of selling brazilian jeans online. Google even says they have a partner network to provide meaningful business decision interpretations of data--a claimed advantage by omniture, although omniture is just announced they are going public--are they worried? maybe, maybe not. Urchin has always been cheap or free (e.g. if you host with Verio). centralized/aggregating software (e.g. adwords, ecommerce) with high security requirements will not fall into this trend as much.
Posted by eran | May 27, 2006 10:14 PM