We are a curious bunch over here, and the other day we began debating about which was the “best” free web analytics software. Each person had their preference, with Google Analytics getting a lot of votes. Nevertheless, we still like hard facts, and just couldn’t end the debate at the standard choice of Google Analytics. We also wanted to discover some of the free products we might be missing. To that end we began a search to discover what was out there. We had a simple mission: Figure out which free web analytics vendor has the best product based on accuracy, user interface and features. We searched our favorite haunts and did a couple of searches, but what we found was mostly opinions. None were based on the most important fact: How accurate was the product? Isn’t that the most important consideration, more than how pretty a graph or how cute a name?

We looked across the web to find out if there was any (recent and free) benchmark studies to this end, but none existed. The only study we found was conducted in 2007 when Rand over at SEOMOZ suggested a test of paid Web Analytic software solutions. The task was undertaken by Eric who contacted several of the leading Web Analytics software companies (at the time) to conduct a comparison. The info gathered can be found in this report.

While this report is great and contains some important insights, two years (in web terms) is dated. Furthermore, the solutions covered by Eric and his company might be overkill for what the cash-strapped company, part-time webmaster or SEO do-it-yourselfer needs. Truthfully, most users can be satisfied by a free web analytics solution. With no recent study of the free options, an idea began to germinate to create our own study. And so it began…

To start, we tried formulate what were the parameters of the study. We decided to exclude self-hosted options (such as Mint, Piwik and OWA). Not that we don’t believe in them, but we figured the deployment and knowledge of the small business owner would be limited. Furthermore, self-hosted options come with a myriad of complex variables including user hosting environment, scripts being abandoned from active development, security issues left unfixed or obfuscated code. To keep track of all these issues while presenting useful material was decided to be outside the scope of our current mission. Nevertheless, if there is enough demand, we might consider it in the future.

As we began to review the free web analytics companies, we came up with the following criteria of selection:

• We decided to use “well-known” free options. We are not using sites that spam, are ad-heavy, or might not be around in a year.
• The web analytics company must be active. That means there is still development, so if new browsers come out, or new search engines are released, you will be able to track them.
• We have included companies that offer paid options, but where the free options were robust enough for the small site operators. In other words, if the provider has a free option, but the data you get is restricted to a point only a psychic can help you with SEO/SEM decisions, they will be excluded.
• We are not using companies where you need to download software to your system (such as Woopra).
• We are not including companies in closed BETA or have restricted access (such as Reinvigorate), but once they are open to the public we will add them to our comparison reports.

Taking into account all the above considerations, we are proud to announce the creation of Mark8t’s Study of the Best Free Web Analytics companies. This will be an ongoing test of the free web analytics vendors. This means as new companies come and go, the list will change. It also means in two years, we will still be tracking the various vendors. The home base for this study will be analytics.mark8t.com. Visits to that sub domain (only) will be tracked using the most popular free web analytics companies [listed below]. New services as they warrant inclusion will be included only at the end of a month for the fairest comparison.

We also talked it over and decided not to use a log analyzer. Our goal is to put the products out there and see what they do. Our hypothesis is that they should all be relatively close as they all use the same web based method. If there are huge discrepancies, then it should quickly become obvious, good or bad, which are the best (worst) vendors. All the details will be published on a monthly basis and we hope that this will help to make your free web analytics decision easier. The first report will be released in June.

For now, we need your help to get the word out about this project. Please link to analytics.mark8t.com and visit often to see how the free web analytics vendors track you. Tell your friends too! The more visitors to this page, the better we will be able to see how the free analytics companies do and the more info you will have to make an informed decision.

For returning visitors, who want to check out how the various vendors are doing (at any time) we have created a simple stats page with the links to the public data. This will also be the page where the monthly comparison report will be released.

We will also have follow up posts on this project on our blog. The posts will be tagged “Web Analytics Project”. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog.

List of Free Web Analytic Companies:
BLVD Status
Clicky
eXTReMe Tracker
GoStats
Google Analytics
Quantcast
Shiny Stat
SiteMeter
Stat08
StatCounter
W3Counter
Whos Amung Us

Some notes of caution:
-It is important to advise you that those visiting with the No Script plug-in or JavaScript disabled will probably not be counted.
-If people leave before the page loads, it is possible that they may not be counted.

Leave your feedback here as well. We’d love to hear it!

****Update July 2009***
Google Analytics is the best analytics for the value and features. No one else comes close. We are closing the project for now.