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Google Offers Web Analytics for Free

Disrupting yet another market, Google Inc. is now offering enterprise-class Web analytics for free.

In March, Google acquired San Diego-based Urchin Software Corporation and promptly lowered the monthly cost of the company's hosted Web analytics service, Urchin On Demand, from $495 to $199. Today, the search company is re-branding Urchin under the name Google Analytics and making it available to everyone for nothing.

"From an enterprise standpoint, the price is right," says Brian Comeau, a search engine optimization specialist at e-commerce network Ritz Interactive Inc., which currently relies on Urchin.

Web analytics is the analysis of the data generated by visitors to Web sites -- the pages they visit, the ads they click on, and various related metrics -- for the purpose of marketing and content optimization.

According to Eric Peterson, a senior analyst at JupiterResearch, competing enterprise Web analytics vendors charge anywhere from several hundred dollars annually to millions of dollars per year for complex, high-traffic installations.


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PPC costs on the rise!

Soaring profits found in search ads

LOS ANGELES — It's no wonder Google's profit shot up sevenfold this quarter: Prices are soaring for search ads — those simple text ads that appear next to Internet search results.

Advertisers pay each time someone clicks on an ad. Search ads used to be available for a nickel or dime per click. Now they're costing more than $1, some even $40 or $50.

Google and rival Internet giant Yahoo dominate the $8 billion market for search ads, which are sold in an auction setting. So far this year, Google has reported revenue of more than $4 billion, almost all of it from the sale of advertising. "It's a supply and demand marketplace," says Gregg Stewart, senior vice president at search-marketing consultancy Fathom Online. "As more advertisers get involved, that drives prices up."

Rates have risen 18% on average from a year ago, says Dave Lavinsky, who runs a site called TopPayingKeywords.com.

Soaring search ad rates helped Yahoo quarterly revenue shoot up 47% to $1.3 billion. Google's $381 million profit was fueled by a 96% revenue increase, to $1.6 billion, nearly all of it from search ads.

Advertisers love search ads because unlike mass-audience TV or print ads, they are targeted to people who are actively looking to buy. And advertisers only have to pay for an ad if a customer clicks on it.

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