Four statistics packages were analyzed, and the fifth one cost $25 a month but provided comprehensive screenshots and documentation to include in the analysis. Most of the free or low-cost programs have relatively the same features. All track general statistics on number of unique visitors and how often pages are being viewed. Even the low-end programs have the Google map interface.

Mint, $30

Designed by Shuan Inman, Mint has a simple, straight forward interface. Statistics are grouped in boxes and displayed on one page. The unique feature for this program is it’s ability to add on 3rd party piece. Mint has an open API so developers can add on directly to the Mint program. The third party pieces are cleverly named “Pepper”; add your pepper to your Mint. This feature adds greatly to it’s popularity. The Pepper I installed was called Real Estate (shows window widths) and it’s visible in the screenprint. Here’s a website of available pepper.Mint has been very reliable, and I can count on every page view being represented.

Crazy Egg, free

Crazy Egg makes you set up a test before you can look at anything, which I found disturbing. How do I know what to test for if I have not seen any data yet? So I made up a test name called home page. The nice thing Crazy Egg has over Mint is the overlay feature. It displays the number of clicks directly on a picture of your website. The heat map is a bit of a gimick but also shows the number of clicks.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics looks like the best program (and it’s free), but I wonder why Mint can see the few hits I’ve had, but yet Google doesn’t acknowledge a single one(?). This program has 3 main views set up for you: Executive Summary, Marketer, or Webmaster. Which view you like best depends on who you are. I think this program will do well for marketing campaigns and with companions like adSense and adWords that drive a lot of traffic. As for the 2 measly hits I”ve had today, I see nothing.

TrackSpace, free for mySpace

TrackSpace is a 3rd party tracking mechanism for the popular social website mySpace. While TrackSpace sports the cool Geo feature (they all do) it really doesn’t mean anything. It can report the IP address of who has been looking at you. If you know who that person is (by time of day and geographical location), you can jump through hoops to get the myspace id number, and then assign it to that IP address. I don’t see it offering any viable statistics.

ClickTracks, $25mo

ClickTracks looks like the best program evaluated, but then again it’s $25 a month. I view this site as being for serious, but small, websites. It’s layout combines the overlay effect with side reports. This creates a very intuitive interface. Another feature I like is the ability to group blocks of data together and label it. This is a powerful feature that allows more customization in your reporting needs.

Competitor Intelligence

Hit Wise is a company that has partnered with various ISPs. They collect pools of anonymous user data. This can be analyzed to see where users are going after visiting your competitors site, or to see if they visit competitors before your site.

ComScore collects user data via a user panel that allows their traffic to be routed through ComScore proxy servers.

Alexa collects information via a toolbar and provides page rankings.