The ever growing importance of web analytics was seen again earlier this week when Google announced the purchase of the Urchin web analytics company. There is a lot of speculation as to how Google is going to use its new acquisition, but one rumour is that it will be offered as a freebie, or at low cost, in some form or another to
add value to their advertising products.

Urchin may or may not be your first choice in web analytics software but Google's interest in it is further proof of the growing need to quantify the return on investment in search engine marketing.

You can read more on this here:

http://www.urchin.com/company/news/03282005.html