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There are a number of free or inexpensive search analytics tools available out there, and this article will outline a few of them that have gotten rave reviews.

SEObook author Aaron Wall talks about these in our interview with him, as well as some strategy and online marketing philosophy, which you can check out in the video below.

Google Analytics

Google shook up the search analytics scene with the release of Urchin-powered Google Analytics. Google bought measurement powerhouse in 2005 and eventually integrated its tons of information into its Analytics product, the second incarnation of which was released early in 2007.

The good news, all that information is free.

The service allows webmasters to:

• See pie charts and maps that show who is sending traffic and what part of the world (on a city level) visitors are coming from.
• See several different reporting categories: Executive; Marketer; Webmaster; Marketing Optimization; Content Optimization.
• Integrate the information with AdWords that allows ROI reporting
• See visitor trending 

Some reports say the breadth of information available through Google Analytics can be overwhelming, so there may be a bit of a learning curve for full benefits.

Kaushik.net has a comprehensive (exhaustive) review.

Compete Search Analytics

Metrics firm Compete grabbed some buzz this fall with the release of Compete Search Analytics, of which there are both free and pay versions. The company boasts:

•     Keyword discovery for expanding your keyword bidding
•     The ability to find gaps in competitors' strategies
•     Discovery of keywords that drive visitor engagement
•     Performance tracking and competitor comparison

Mint

Mint is a relative inexpensive tracking tool ($30 per site) that tracks browser type, country of origin, internal searches, outbound clicks, specific page tracking, and page trending.

It has been mentioned that Mint is fairly basic to the point that free tools would offer the same, but where it becomes worth its salt is via "Peppers," or free plug-ins created by enthusiastic developers.

SEO for Firefox

Developed by Aaron Wall, this Firefox browser plug-in allows you to see various stats about a website in the toolbar and beneath that site's search result.  It tells you:

•     PageRank
•     Estimate of inbound links via Yahoo and MSN
•     Number of .edu and .gov links to the site and pages within
•     Number of del.icio.us bookmarks for a page
•     Estimated Technorati links
•     Alexa ranking
•     How many pages are in Google's cache
•     How many page are indexed in DMOZ
•     How many Bloglines links
•     Whether a site is indexed in Yahoo
•     Whois lookup
•     Age of a domain
•     Google search volume trends
•     Popular keywords
•     Top keyword bid prices on Overture
•     Bid estimates and click volume estimates on Google

SEODigger

Another free tool available, SEODigger shows:

• Which keywords your site ranks high enough for to be in Google top 20
• Analysis of user sites and competition sites,
• How well sites are optimized for search
• Information on entire domain as well as pages