Google Analytics Vs Yahoo Analytics

Google launched Google Analytics which was UrChin before, provides both hosted and log-based tools for understanding how people are interacting with web sites. Yahoo already owns web analytics technology that it obtained through its 2003 purchase of Overture. One reason to jump into web analytics is that the search companies understand that as search ad prices rise, people will only be willing to pay more if they can justify this by showing better conversions. Web analytics can help those who aren't tracking conversions or who are tracking conversions at only a basic level to better understand the full picture of what happens on their web sites. There are many other sites are available like, OneStat, ShinyStat and ClicksTracks .

How Urchin or Google Analytics works:
There are two components to the Urchin Traffic Monitor System: the UTM Sensor, which is a lightweight module installed into the content of the website; and the UTM Engine which is part of the log processing Urchin Engine. The UTM Sensor enables client-side data collection, which is then funneled back through the web server augmenting the normal logfile. The client-side information is combined with the existing server-side data by the UTM Engine to provide a more accurate and complete picture of website activity.



The UTM Sensor is a small amount of JavaScript code that accomplishes two important functions. First, the Sensor negates the effects of caching by forcing at least one hit to progress to the original web server for each pageview. The impact on the server is minimal, and the details about the additional hit are logged into the normal web logfiles resulting in a more complete data set. Secondly, the UTM Sensor uniquely identifies each visitor by using client-side "1st party" cookies to keep track of first time and returning visitors. This cookie identifier is a communication tag only viewable to your web server in the same nature as session ids. It is not a third party cookie, which provides information outside your system, violating many privacy policies.