One mighty ruler

Search ad partners Google and Yahoo have made announcements regarding their respective publisher/advertiser analytics offerings.

From Google comes word that Website Optimizer is out of beta and available to Google Analytics users. Optimizer was previously only accessible to AdWords customers.

Google is also releasing Urchin for publishers to download and install on their own servers. It purchased Urchin in 2005 and uses it as the foundation for Analytics.

According to Google, web-based Analytics should be fine for most publishers. Urchin is only recommended for those with specific needs.

Yahoo made its first major foray into analytics with IndexTools, a set of tools it acquired last week. IndexTools' Web Analytics Enterprise technology will be available for free to select users. Those that agree to Yahoo's terms of service will have access to functionality that will not be available to the masses until the next software update is released. A date for the update was not revealed.

A recent, rather contrarian study found Yahoo outpaces Google in ad spend and click conversion.