Types

Web analytics fall into two distinct categories: off-site and on-site. On-site analytics are concerned with a website’s commercial performance compared to the scope of the Internet as a whole. This type of analysis generates web statistics that are used as benchmarks, or key performance indicators. Data from on-site analytics that falls short of these benchmarks can be used to generate new ideas for web marketing campaigns as well as traditional print advertising in some instances. One of the main features of on-site analytics is that they measure and track each visitor’s activity on a specific website. One component that webmasters often examined is the amount of time spent on their site’s landing page versus how long each visitor may consider before making the purchase in the case of e-commerce websites.

Off-site web analytics differ in their focus; this data quantifies the overall possible performance of a website under optimal conditions. These statistics measure the averages of similar websites across the Internet, namely in terms of visibility, external references on other sites, and numbers of potentially interested customers. Many webmasters who have utilized mainly off-site statistics have found that the data quickly becomes too broad in scope to be effectively useful, particularly in the cases of smaller businesses. This fact has led to the development of web analytics that combine characteristics of both on-site and off-site data collecting in order to produce more meaningful results.