I don't know whether I should write about it or not. But let me tell you very honestly, I always wanted to write about it. The whole thing is very simple to understand. Now, you have your site ready and you are concerned about tracking visits on your site. In other words, you want to know who your visitors are. From where are they coming? Which keywords are they typing in the search engines to reach at your site? What are the popular pages of your site? These and perhaps more could be a matter of interest for anyone. Tracking visits and related activities is limited not only to those companies which are into online businesses or ecommerce activities. Infact, anyone of you out there can track your visitors and study their site behaviour. But the question arises - how?

Well, tracking visits is very easy today as compared to what it was few years back. Lots of online services are out there to help you with this. Two of the most popular services for the same, in my opinion are - Google Analytics and Statcounter. Now, I've been using both in the past to track my visitors and study their behaviour on my site. And, honestly speaking nothing seems to be more exciting than tracking your visitors and their page activities. Now, as I wrote earlier both Google Analytics and Statcounter is there to help you with this tracking business. But one may wonder - which service is much better? Is Google Analytics better than Statcounter or Is it viceversa? Well, its never easy for anyone to say - this is better or that is best. And same goes on with Google Analytics and Statcounter. Both the services are quite excellent. But still, I believe there are some differences on which I would rate one service much above the other.

Honestly writing, I find Statcounter quite better than Google Analytics. The very first thing about Statcounter which is appealing to me is its user interface. Statcounter has much better user interface as compared to Google analytics. I believe Statcounter would have been much better if the stats it shows in the summary were more clear. I find it bit cluttered and confusing. As compared to this, Google Analytics presents this summary in a much clear interface - I like the graphical representation of visits. The graphical stats are quite clear and informative. The biggest plus point which Statcounter has over Google Analytics is that in Statcounter you don't have to wade through 'n' number of options to track your site visits or check the user behaviour on your site. The vertical navigation bar located on the left hand side of the page gives you quick access to most of the things you want to know about your site like popular pages, keywords, search engine traffic, visitor locations and map, etc..

Well, its not that you cannot find all these in Google Analytics but I am talking about easiness of getting access to information which is not that user friendly in Google Analytics. You have to dig in deep inside to find each and every information about your site. One more best thing which I like about Statcounter is the information it provides about recent keyword activity. Through this information, you can better understand those words and phrases which are bringing traffic on your website. The recent keyword activity is actually an information about those keywords which people searched in the search engines recently and through which they came to your site. Cool !! Isn't it? Also, I like the recent came from information. It gives information about the recent whereabouts on your site like from where did you got your last visitors.

There is one more thing worth mentioning about Statcounter and that is the log size. The logsize is actually a database of all your recent traffic and keyword activities plus more. Now, sadly for free users this logsize is limited to only 500. To get more comprehensive and detailed logsize, you must go for the upgrade. You can choose various upgrade schemes depending upon your requirement and overall budget. The best thing about upgradation is that you get a whole lot of benefits like increased logsize, more secured tracking option, advance email reporting, banner add removal, etc.. Now, Statcounter is quite fast in comparison to Google Analytics. Google Analytics takes a bit more time to show site stats while its not the same case with Statcounter. Statcounter provides access to each and every information in the quickest possible time.

Now, I have joined many forums recently and I did discuss about the same thing - Google analytics or Statcounter ? And as I was expecting, most of them favored Google Analytics over Statcounter. Maybe they were more concerned about the brand - GOOGLE. But I also came to know about one more thing that really amazed me. There were some people who thought that Google Analytics didn't provide the correct details about their site traffic and related activities. Most of the times they were presented with incorrect stats and information. Well, I cannot comment over that but still...

Altogether, let me tell you very honestly - I am a great admirer of Google and its services. But still I feel there are some others which I would like to put ahead of google. As in the case of Google Analytics and Statcounter, I would put Statcounter above Google without any hesitation. I would rate Statcounter 9 out of 10 and Google Analytics 7 out of 10. Thats not much difference. Mainly because its not about the good and the bad. But its about the good and the better. To sum up then, you must have got at least some knowledge about web analytics and related services. Now, its upto you to consider what I said in the above paragraphs or try it on your own.