Google Analytics vs. Webtrends Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Analytics
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Google Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.
$150,000
per year
Webtrends Analytics
Score 4.4 out of 10
N/A
WebTrends provides an enterprise web analytics platform and, according to Forrester, has a strong focus on support for mobile and social channels and a very open platform. Webtrends competes directly with Adobe Site Catalyst, IBM Coremetrics. and comScore DigitalAnalytix.N/A
Pricing
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Editions & Modules
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
TrustRadius Insights
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Google Analytics and Webtrends Analytics are both tools aimed at analyzing web traffic, but they serve different purposes.  

Google is the market leader in web analytics and the fact that Google Analytics is free to use makes it especially appealing to small businesses. Webtrends Analytics is aimed at larger companies looking to get insights into their SharePoint site web traffic. It has purpose-built tools to analyze SharePoint site performance. 

Features

Google Analytics and Webtrends Analytics both offer attractive features to customers, but some stand out for each based on their use-case. 

Google Analytics’ major advantage over its competition is that it offers an easy to use and versatile free version. Though Google Analytics Premium is available for organizations that need advanced web analytics capabilities.  It is also able to integrate with a huge variety of third-party software. Google offers online training and certifications to help users master Google Analytics. Because of its large install base, users are able to find answers to questions quickly among the user community. 

Webtrends Analytics is an excellent tool for businesses looking to measure their Microsoft Sharepoint usage and performance. Users can collect insights such as newsfeed post frequency and data from likes, shares, and replies. User data can also be collected based on how users interact with lists and list components. Webtrends customers on TrustRadius report being pleased with the support offered by Webtrends Analytics. 

Limitations

Let’s explore a few of the downsides for Google Analytics and Webtrends Analytics. 

In the free version of Google Analytics, users are only able to see sampled data from Google. This means users will not be able to see all the data Google Analytics collects about their website, but they can still see enough to make decisions and forecast outcomes. Google Analytics also limits data exports to only 5,000 rows. If users need to export more data it may have to be broken into pieces to achieve the desired results. There is also no phone or web-based support offered by Google, so users will have to be resourceful and figure out problems on their own or with the help of the community. 

As previously mentioned, Webtrends Analytics is mostly used for analyzing SharePoint sites. This makes it not ideal for users that have a broader use case, such as needing to track website traffic and usage on non-SharePoint websites and intranets. This software also costs money in comparison to the free version of Google Analytics. There is also no mobile app for users to take advantage of with Webtrends. 

Pricing

Google Analytics is free, but users will have to contend with sampled data and limited exports. A paid version of the software is available, but will likely only appeal to large, enterprise-scale companies due to its cost of $150,000 per year. This allows access to all of Google’s site data and even more powerful analytics capabilities. Businesses will have to contact a Google representative to purchase the higher tier of this software. 

Webtrends Analytics offers a free trial option upon request. Users looking to purchase the software will also need to contact the vendor to obtain specific pricing details. 

Features
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Webtrends Analytics
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
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Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Small Businesses
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Optimal
Optimal
Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
5.4
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.5
(0 ratings)
5.4
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AnalyticsWebtrends Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Honesty, there is no reason that a company wouldn’t want to implement Google Analytics. The regular version is completely free, is very easy to configure, and provides immense volumes of website data. There are also tangible benefits to the other Google tools it can connect to, and it integrates with any BI/data platform that you might use. The only time I’d advise not using standard Google Analytics is if you’ve purchased Google Analytics 360.
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Scenarios 1. If you want to use web server log files as input to your web analytics, then Webtrends will provides a good product, with great ease of implementation. Don't even think about being cheap on hardware, and make sure Webtrends runs on real servers, not in a VM environment. 2. If you want to use Data Tagging, similar to Google Analytics or Site Catalyst, Webtrends has a powerful product, just be prepared to pay. 3. If you are new to Web Analytics, but it is the strategic direction, start with Webtrends on Premises. Questions to Ask 1. What are you trying to accomplish? 2. Can you place a dollar value on the benefit that you expect/need from Webtrends? 3.Can you live with Webtrends running SaaS?
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Pros
  • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
  • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
  • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
  • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
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  • Webtrends Analytics makes complex situations understandable to a non-technical audience. The vast capabilities and ways to slice data is both a great tool, but can also cause a user/users many hours of frustration.
  • Visual data display is clean, to the point, and not overly convoluted with unneeded variables and standard (defualt) settings. Everything the end user sees is customizeable.
  • Exports of raw data collections was easy and accurate. Once the parameters of data collection are finally set up and working, its easy to get what you want from the UI and is delievered in a variety of options.
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Cons
  • While raw data is nice to have, I do wish there was an easier way to provide reports from Google Analytics directly. Something that could answer questions straight-forward for people.
  • I would appreciate "helpful hints" or a cheat sheet of some sort, so when quickly searching for something such as time on a certain page, I can find it quickly.
  • I really don't have a third point!
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  • Webtrends is not great at providing statistical data for analysis. You need to enable Log File Delivery or create an analysis export to perform this. This could theoretically be done with Streams.
  • Webtrends has difficulty identifying multi-visit users due to the inherent fragility of cookie-based tracking.
  • Webtrends Analytics does not provide Pathing capabilities for segments, only for the aggregate. However, this can be worked around with Scenario functionality selectively fired by a tag management system.
  • Segmentation by high-cardinality parameters tends to cause issues with table limits. Even after scrubbing and scrutinizing data, we commonly see up of 10K rows per dimension. Due to this, we use Webtrends Analytics to roll up data into larger segments and export all of our log data into our database for heavy duty number crunching.
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Likelihood to Renew
Having used Google Analytics for the last 9 years, I have no intention of discontinuing my service. Google Analytics is a fantastic product that provides me with almost everything I could wish for. The positives in this product outweigh any negatives that you might find. I can not think of a single reason to not immediately start using Google Analytics for your business.
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The obstacles to renewing are 1) finding people to manage it who know it well and 2) frustration because of the lack of on-the-fly analysis. Usually, renewal prices are reasonable and the cost of switching to something else when you have a somewhat complicated setup far outweigh the renewal costs, especially if your implementation is sound and your reports are humming along. A lot of renewal decisions are going to hinge on the new product that will start to roll out this month.
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Usability
Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
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If I could give it a 0, I would. Not having an intuitive user interface made it impossible to convince non-analytic business users to use the tool on their own. Even as a seasoned analyst, frequent calls were needed to get what should be simple tasks done. Account managers don't understand the tool either, and have to refer you to technical support
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Reliability and Availability
We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
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It is much better than average. Down time usually occurs because of a need to refresh the server on our end.
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Performance
This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
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The v9 admin interface and v10 reporting interface work as well as expected, but have a tendency to be pokey, especially for bulky reports and whenever you're connected to wifi. I much prefer using the REST API for all reporting for this reason, which simply dumps out the data and doesn't bother with the user interface.
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Support Rating
The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
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The Webtrends Support Engineers are expert at what they do, and we get to speak to someone on the support team quickly. They provide great solutions when available, and when there is no solution, which can happen, they describe work-arounds.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
The in-person training was comprehensive enough to get you started, but I strongly recommend having a more experienced person when beginning with the tool.
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Online Training
love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
  1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
  2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
  3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
  4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
  5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
  6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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Webtrends provides several free webinars over the course of the year, many of which I would expect to pay for. The people providing the webinars seem to have a good feel for real-world application of the product.
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Implementation Rating
Make sure to put the tracking code on every page. Ideally this would be part of a template or "include" so you can update the code on all pages (or at least within pages of the same category) at once.
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Careful planning and patience. Use a non-public test site to fine tune tags and reporting. Despite best laid plans, there will be surprises when you collect the data, run the analysis and begin generating reports using the tool. Perform a tag audit to ensure tags fire as desired.
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Alternatives Considered
I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
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Webtrends has its work cut out for itself considering you have the behemoth Google Analytics and Google Analytics Premium having a strong offering and brand recognition for the price of free. After reviewing the paid service I'd suggest you start off with GA as a cheaper alternative that is just as robust, if not much more flexible in regards to the reporting and goal tracking needs for our company.
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Scalability
Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Great for visualizing website drop-off pages to theories and test update/iterations.
  • Bounce rates on pages to pinpoint bugs and issues.
  • Inaccuracy can lead to incorrect conclusions and decisions around CRO.
  • Segments can be very useful for validating split testing, providing a free tracking of variation vs. control - great ROI.
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  • Webtrends has had a positive impact on site visitation because it allowed us to understand the sources by domain for site traffic and find out ways to increase visits from those domains.
  • Webtrends has also allowed us to understand areas of optimization on the site, which has had a positive impact on the overall user journey on the site, likely leading to longer site duration and engagement.
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ScreenShots

Webtrends Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of 450+ out-of-box reports
Unlimited custom reports
Roll-up reports across domains
Out-of-box channel and market-specific reportsScreenshot of Unlimited dimensions
No processing time
Dynamic, on-the-fly segmentation
Create, save and share custom views, measures and segmentsScreenshot of Unlimited custom dashboards
Key metrics, trends, demographics, geo maps, word clouds and more
Drill-throughs to connected reports