Of all the sources of information today the Internet is without doubt the most extensive. But precisely because there is so much information available it often becomes difficult sifting through what is available and finding the best of exactly what you are looking for. It is amazing how much time and energy is spent on surfing the net and actually finding what we are looking for.

That’s where web analytics comes in. So, what is web analytics? It is the method by which you rate the performance of a website. As a website owner you can use it to study the behavior of visitors and to discover how best to use your site to satisfy them. It will help you discover what really is or isn’t working for your site, thus giving you the opportunity to set things right. 

But you don’t really have to be a website owner to perform web analytics. You could also carry it out off site. Whereas data collected onsite can be accessed only by the website owner and by people he/she wishes to grant access to, one can receive off-site web analytics data for any website whether it be your competitor’s or not.

You can use ISP (Internet Service Provider) data or panel data to perform this off-site web analytics. There are companies concerned with collecting anonymous data provided by ISPs and providing them as samples. With this type of analysis all types of visitors are represented, and the data is quite accurate, although it is anonymous as a result of which one will not receive any demographic data.

Certain companies employ the panel method to collect data from member websites (most of them home users). Their web activity is monitored by measuring software installed on their computers. Demographic data (age, sexual category, and income bracket etc) are available since the panelists are not anonymous.

It is best to use off-site analytics when you are thinking of launching a site and when you wish to understand visitor demographics more completely.

You can   also use off-site analytics to discover the number of people who visited your website and which websites were previously and later patronized by your visitors.

The advantage of off-site web analytics, besides the availability of demographic data, is that competitors can be tracked and you do not need a website to do this. However it is expensive and not necessarily very accurate as the samples are from a limited flow of traffic.

On-site web analytics involves the use of analytics tools to measure and track visitor traffic to your site. 'Page tagging' is the most commonly used technique to accomplish this. This involves attaching a tag of java script code to your web page. This secures information in a visitor’s browser, stores it as a cookie and then broadcasts it to data collection servers.

On-site web analyticsis best used for discovering how many people visit your website, whether visitors to your site find your content appealing and useful, and to discover the type of experience they are having while there. You can also use on-site web analytics to find what is actually bringing visitors to your site- whether it is the search engines, keywords or banner campaigns and such.

The tools used for on-site web analytics are quite inexpensive and can be used for any website irrespective of its size. However refrain from using different tools. For best results choose the correct tool carefully and stick to it.

It is clear therefore that both, on-site web analytics and off-site web analytics have their uses. Use the type of analytics that best serves your purpose, but don’t hesitate to use both types of web analytics to your advantage.