Web analytics is a process of collecting data contents from your website and performing an analysis on it. It shows all the meaningful information it has on it and the way in which users are utilizing this content. Applications for web analytics to be found, many that you may know already, such as these popular ones: Crazy Egg, Google Analytics, including the services of Compete and Alexa, which are remote sites.
This is where we will be getting off Google Analytics beaten path while we take the time to look at 9 other applications have excellent tools, which by the way, are free and similar to that of Google, whereas it helps in gathering and analyzing data from your web’s content.
Snoop
This is Snoop; it is an application that is desktop-based and runs off the platforms of Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista. It can be kept in your status bar/system tray. It makes audible sounds to notify you anytime something is going on. Another one of the Snoop features provided is the name tag options that let you tag users for ease in identification. For instance, whenever someone from the accounting department comes to your site, it will let you know immediately.
Woopra
This is Woopra, and it is written in Java. It divides into two different sections, which comes with a desktop application to use for data analysis and exploration. It also comes with a web service for monitoring website statistics. Woopra was designed with an intuitive management system that lets you run it on multiple websites, including domains, and it provides a chat feature where you can collect non-numerical data while chatting with your website users. At this time, Woopra is in beta, and you must make a request to have a private beta registration.
MochiBot
MochiBot is a web analytics/tracking tool designed just for the Flash assets. It lets you view those that share your Flash content and how often users are viewing your content. It also gives you the ability to track where your Flash content is so that you can prevent piracy, including theft. It is easy to install; you copy a couple of lines found in .FLA files that you want to monitor.
FireStats
This is a simple web analytics application you will find to be straight-forward that is written with the use of PHP/MySQL. FireStats supports several different platforms as well as set-ups, this includes Drupal, WordPress, Joomla! Django sites, C# sites, among others.
Are you one of those developers that has a lot of resources but sometimes need more of something? The FireStats API is great at helping you create custom apps of your own, along with publishing different components of the platforms. Imagine being able to display the 10 files from your WordPress site that are downloaded the most that have been based on the data of FireStats.
Live Demo
BBClone
If you are seeking a server-side web application that will be easy to use and is not dependent on the services of a third-party for monitoring the data you have, then you should check out BBClone. This is a server application that is PHP-based that can provide you with an overview of your site’s visitor and traffic data in detail. There are 32 language localizations such as German, Chinese, Japanese, English, and many other BBClone supports. BBClone integrates in a smooth manner with popular platforms for publishing on like WordPress, Drupal, and Textpattern. Because it is logfile-based, there are no requirements for a server-side connecting database.
4Q
Web analytics consists largely of numerical data and number-crunching. Part of the story is told with raw numbers, but sometimes it helps if you pe4rform analytics through interacting with your actual visitors. Avinashi Kaushik, the developer of 4Q, covered it perfectly when he stated: “Web analytics is good at ‘What,’ and not so good at the ‘Why.’” It is a surveying application that is easy to follow, and that focuses on helping you with the improvement of your traditional numerical Web analytics through supplementing with your users’ feedback. Check out this video to learn how easy 4Q is to install and set up.
Yahoo! Web Analytics
This is Yahoo’s alternative for the dominant Google Analytics. It is robust, at an enterprise-level, is web-based, with a third-party solution, and this has created easy access and even easier for multiple user groups. It consists of everything it takes to make a comprehensive Web analytics tool like fancy graphs, real-time data tracking, and custom designed reports (that are printable).
JAWStats
As a server-based application, JAWStats is Web analytics that is runnable with AWStats, which is so popular that those who have a shared hosting plan may find it has already been installed. It extends AWStats by doing these two things: improves one’s performance as it reduces the usage of server resources, includes the improvement of the user interface. There is no going wrong with using AWStats; you will be pleased with it!
Grape Web Statistics
This easy to use open-source application has been geared with web developers in mind. The interface is clean and usable. Designed with the extensions of API for extending as well as customizing your installation. PHP is used for the backend of Grape Web Statistics. You can run this application with any operating system that is running PHP.
