Yahoo has announced that they’ll begin to roll out Yahoo Web Analytics (beta) on a limited basis beginning this week. According to Jitendra Kavathekar, Yahoo’s Web Analytics VP, the service has already been made available to select Yahoo advertisers and third-party application developers.

The next “big deployment,” Kavathekar says, will be for Yahoo’s 13,000 e-commerce customers hosting under the Yahoo Small Business service. Beyond that, Yahoo Web Analytics will continue to roll out for the rest of this year and into 2009. Yahoo’s analytics service is a result of the company’s purchase of IndexTools earlier this year. Shortly after the purchase, Yahoo’s Dennis Mortensen announced the company’s plans to make Yahoo Web Analytics free.

In its FAQ about the new analytics service, Yahoo suggests three reasons why its product is better than the competition:

1. Real-time Data: “While some analytics products provide data 24-48 hours after collection, Yahoo! Web Analytics reflects data within minutes of collection.”
2. Raw Data: “While some products store aggregated data, which restricts the usefulness of the data to pre-created or canned reports, Yahoo! Web Analytics stores data in non-aggregated raw form.”
3. Ease-of-Use and Flexibility

Yahoo offers a sign-up form for future updates on the Yahoo Web Analytics (beta) home page.

Update: Yahoo’s Dennis Mortensen explains more and shares screenshots in a new post on VisualRevenue.

Related Topics: SEM Tools: Web Analytics | Top News | Yahoo: Web Analytics

About The Author: Matt McGee is Search Engine Land's Executive News Editor, responsible for overseeing our daily news coverage. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. See more articles by Matt McGee