On October 10, Yahoo! launched their new free analytics tool named Yahoo Web Analytics, a rebrand of IndexTools which Yahoo purchased earlier this April. This isn’t very different than Google’s move to buy Urchin in 2005, refine it, and make it available free to the public. However, what is different between Yahoo’s analytics tool and Google’s tool is that Yahoo is not aggregating the data. This is important enough to say it again… you are not analyzing aggregated data with Yahoo. They store all their data in its raw form, allowing for real-time reporting. This is why some think that the two products do not really compete against each other, because they target different audiences.

Not to be outdone, Google announced on October 22 that they were releasing an “Enterprise” feature upgrade to their product. This upgrade includes custom reports, advanced segmentation, an API for developers, updated interface, motion charts, and integration with Google AdSense.

Was Google resting on its laurels, and now feels threatened by the new Yahoo product? Did Google release these new features to combat the release of Yahoo Web Analytics? Could be. It would be interesting to track the number of users of each of these two products over time, just like we track the number of browser users and the number of search engine users.