I have now had speckyboy.com online for 5 months now, at the beginning I was tracking website visitors and all relevant stats through my web hosts own Analytical Tool as well as using Google Analytics. What I noticed was that the accuracy between the two was staggering (not just 100s of a difference but some days 1000s). Why was that? I have no idea, I really don’t. So I started using other Web Based Services (Clicky, Crazy Egg and Click Density) to compare. What I noticed was that these services were on a par with Google for accuracy (my Web Hosts Analytics got scrapped) but offered a hell of a lot more detail and info. They were more user friendly, well designed and looked cool as well. Try them all out, and find the one you prefer. In my case I now use 3 out of the 5. Beware though, its addictive viewing.
1.Clicky Web Analytics
Description: Clicky is a Web Analytics tool that can be used with any type of website (html, ajax and Flash), it offers what I believe the best and most infromation you could ever want to know. The Dashboard is easy to read and very well styled, the list of features is amazing. You have to try this.
Sign up and you can use the Pro version for 21 days, and when this expires you can use the Basic for ever. Don’t be put of by the Basic version it offers a great list of features as well.
URL: http://getclicky.com/
2.Crazy Egg Web Analytics
Description: This a great with a difference, it doesn’t just give you the normal Analytical Stats it offers tips on how to improve your sites SEO, your user Trends, and were you need improvements on your site. It does this by using a Heatmap Overlay of your site (very cool), get the details on each individual element of your site and view a full summary of raw click data.
URL: http://crazyegg.com/
3.Cownt Us Visitor Tracking
Description: Cownter is a service that allows website visitors to see how many people are currently looking at different pages within the site. When a visitor mouses over a LINK, a small bubble pops up telling them how many people are currently on that page. Handy Tool.
URL: http://cownt.us/
4.Click Density Analytics
Description: This is similiar to Crazy Egg Web Analytics (Tagline: ‘Clickdensity is not another statistics or web analytics tool – instead it allows you to analyse the user experience and identify usability and information architecture issues that would have been impossible to identify without it.‘). They aren’t wrong, this a pretty well detailed analysis of your site, not as detailed as Clicky, nor does it look as good Crazy Egg, still its worthy of a try. (I use this).
URL: http://www.clickdensity.com/
5.W3 Counter Analytics
Description: W3Counter is a free web tracker for your website or blog. you get detailed analysis of your site traffic and a live view of what your visitors are doing right now. You’ll learn what sites and searches bring you the most traffic. Easily see which pages are most popular, and which your visitors choose to leave from. Know the browsers, platforms and screen settings your visitors use, where they’re from and what language they speak. (I haven’t tried this, but it does look good)
URL: http://www.w3counter.com/
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30 Mar, 2008
Nice post. Still I disagree. All the tools above are great and have certainly some extra capabilities that Google Analytics doesn’t have. Overall Google Analytics is still superior for advanced metrics analysis.
10 Apr, 2008
I like Google analytics because it is all in the one place which out weighs these five. I do not have the time to log into 5 different platforms to find out what I can (yes maybe a little less) in one application.
As a web developer, I prefer to save time. Cool list however, the w3 counter has me interested.
19 Apr, 2008
Nice list but I think you forgot to include reinvigorate.net.
19 Apr, 2008
my favorite: mint (haveamint.com)
9 May, 2008
Try http://www.pagealizer.com/
Pagealizer shows how long people stay on your page with bounce rate distribution charts, how far visitors scrolled down your page (did you manage to grab their attention in the first paragraph? how much of your copy did they read?) and where people clicked (which call to action really triggered an action). Check us out :)
19 Jun, 2008
Does it mean that omniture, webtrends, clicktracks etc are not better than above tools?
29 Jun, 2008
I found that Logdy is better than Clicky and W3Counter.
4 Nov, 2008
I am currently using SiteMeter (the free version) but am not looking forward to upgrading with them since they seem to be down a lot lately. Just when I start getting hits galore, NOW they become unreliable. Two years ago, always up. Arrgghhh!
28 Dec, 2008
Google analytics sucks! It’s not accurate, it shows the information after 24 hours and dosen’t show details about the visitors. I checked my self GA against other services and the difference between the number of visitors is huge.
4 Feb, 2009
i find w3 to be slow loading both on my site and within the acct
24 Mar, 2009
Your post is pretty good but the title, and the message you post in Twitter is not awesome. Will you replace compltetely Goolge analytics by one of the five?
5 Jul, 2009
You bring up some excellent points. Google analytics is ok, but some of these other services definitely offer more details and flexibility. Great post!
2 Aug, 2009
i’ve been using gogle analytics all this time like a sucker.
this sucks.
neyous.com
5 Oct, 2009
Thanks for point no. 5. I don´t know what is W3 Counter before i read this article.
12 Nov, 2009
Analitics is the best by far, tried many