Web Analytics Forum

Web analytics, also sometimes referred to as Web metrics or site traffic reporting, has been around for sometime in various forms. It began with long, tech-jargon server log files that trained IT personnel would pull and distill into individual reports. The process was time-consuming and really only valuable from a technical perspective. They did little to help the average Website owner understand his or her site activity.

Then came a new generation of analytics, spurred on by site owners who wanted easier to understand reports that they could access online (hosted solutions), without having to hire IT "translators" for log files. This was a ground swell that had begun a few years ago, but it crested in a tsunami when Google announced early in 2006 that it was offering a hosted Web analytics service for free. Suddenly, Web analytics became a buzz word and anyone who owned or managed a serious Website was looking at Web analytics and site metrics reports.

Now that the media blitz has died down, there is still a huge interest in analytics...and rightfully so! Hosted analytics services are extremely important for optimizing, maintaining and profiting from a Website these days. With so much competition, site statistics reports are becoming more valuable every day. And now, with a couple that offer real-time data reports, VisiStat (the first to offer real-time and the only one to offer live data), and the recent real-time conversion of Coremetrics, Web analytics are even more valuable than ever before.

To learn more about Web analytics, here's a list of forums, blogs and resources that can provide a wealth of information.

• Web Analytics Demystified
  
  
• Reviews of four top Web analytics services
  
  
• XML.com
  
  
• Web Analytics Association Forum
  
  
• Web Analytics Blog
  
  
• Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik
  
  
• Matt Sarrel