Urchin is a web analytics solution that many large corporations use. Web analytics is the analysis of the data generated by visitors to sites such as the pages visited, ads clicked on, and other important metrics. This data can then be used to improve marketing and site conversions.

Google bought Urchin a while back and reduced Urchin On-Demand services from $499 to $199/month. Even with the lowered price, many small businesses could not see the value of investing in such a program. JupiterResearch found that 83% of companies in the U.S. with $1 million or more in annual revenue were under-invested in web analytics.

I’m a big believer in measuring business performance - online and offline. As a business consultant to brick and mortar businesses, measuring key performance indicators is one of the first steps to implement in order to improve a business. If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

Google has since decided to rebrand Urchin as Google Analytics and what’s more, they are give it away for FREE (well, almost). It is free for sites up to 5 million page views.

…the Service is provided without charge to You for up to 5 million pageviews per month per account, and if You have an active Adwords campaign in good standing, the Service is provided without charge to You without a pageview limitation.

The process of setup is simple. Here are the steps:

    1. Get a Google account. If you already have a Gmail or Adwords account, you’re ready to go.
    2. Sign in at Google Analytics.
    3. Obtain your personal Javascript tracking code for the site you’re registering for.
    4. Copy and paste the code into your webpages including your homepage (it must be on your homepage at a minimum).
    5. Click on the Check Status button to confirm the code was installed correctly. If it fails the first time, double check your code is on the homepage by doing a ‘right-click’, then ‘view source’. If code is present, give it some time as the service may be experiencing difficulties with the current heavy load.

With the unusually heavy demand for the service lately, existing users report a lag time of 12 hours or more in reporting data. We can only hope that this free service will retain much of the value that the paid version did and that Google continunes to improve upon a great product. Already, many are complaining of painfully slow data collection and inaccessibility of data after signup.

This free offering will most certainly disrupt and unsettle current web analytics providers. More complex web analytics providers like Hitbox or Omniture probably won’t feel a thing as they cater to large businesses. For small business owners though, this certainly is good news.