Shooin Company Web Design | North East Ohio Web Design and Maintenance

I was asked today to explain the difference between Google Analytics and Omniture's Site Catalyst and since I put some a great deal of thought into it, I figured I would share it here for feedback and opinions.

SEO can be simple and it can be complicated. Google keeps it simple and Omniture, while more robust and more extensive, is more complicated. Omniture recommends training in order to operate effectively. Google will work without the training and if you decide to train, there are quite a few extra features as well.

If you are referring to unique visitors Google Analytics and Site Catalysist calculates them differently. Google does it differently using cookies and session variables, while on the other hand Site Catalyst does it based off the way the page is coded and the report that is generated. For example Site Catalysis has four different time frames used to define Unique Visitors: Hourly, daily, monthly, and annually. A hourly visitor may visit your site at 3:15, 3:56 and 4:20 and that would count as two unique visits. The same goes for daily, monthly , and annually.

So depending on how the page is tagged and the report is generated.. The numbers can be different in many ways. I believe there is also a Daily Unique Visitor Report that just calculates IP address which would also be different. It gets worse when you throw in Absolute Unique visits which would also be different.

Google makes it easy for us we simply set up the page in GA and add the code and it checks the page and let us know that its receiving data. On the other hand Omniture has a great deal of bells and whistles most of which I am not familiar. You can set up variables and track based off different criteria. My omniture training is limited so I can not say for sure how the reports are being generated. Omniture has been known to generate higher numbers, and a lot depends on how the pages are generated.. dynamically or static.

To answer the question.. The main difference is Omniture is like a Ferrari while Google a Volkswagen. Both will get you where you need to go. One just has more horsepower, features and comes with a hefty price tag. Google tags are easier to insert, and omniture has more room for error with all the optional variables