Google Analytics gets more enterprise-savvy

Google Analytics has always been a good, free alternative to the more in-depth, pricier Web analytics suites out there

. But it was relatively bare-boned, and lacked some key capabilities for enterprise sites. With those shortcomings in mind, Google announced that it has updated the service in an effort to make it a bit more enterprise-savvy.

Google Analytics lets Web site administrators keep detailed statistics on site visitors, including time of visit and pages viewed. The new upgrades are all aimed at enabling users to get more detailed, customized insight into that data. They include:

* Advanced Segmentation: This lets users isolate and analyze subsets of traffic, such as the pre-defined “Paid Traffic” or “Visits with Conversions” segments. It also lets users build custom segments.

* Custom reports. This lets users create, save and edit custom views of data, using a drag-and-drop interface to populate an Analytics report.

* Motion Charts. This lets users add multi-dimensional views to Analytics reports, enabling them to plot metrics on various axes and view how they change over time.

* Account Management Dashboard. This displays key performance metrics at log-in and provides easy navigation between accounts and profiles.

* Data export API. Still in beta, the API lets users export data from Analytics and combine it with other data sources.

* AdSense integration. This lets users view their AdSense revenue and impressions data side-by-side with their Analytics site traffic data.

Google has posted several YouTube videos to help users get a handle on the new features. Taken together, they help Analytics provide some of the key features enterprises need when looking to analyze and optimize their Web traffic. Looks like sometimes “free” and “feature-rich” do go together.