By David Chartier
October 09, 2008 - 08:45PM CT

Yahoo must have adopted a strange new policy of putting acquisitions to good use, exhibited in its latest form by the announcement of Yahoo Web Analytics.

Marketed as "an enterprise site analytics tool," the private beta of Yahoo Web Analytics reveals a clear initial focus on business and commercial web sites, and some unique features could give competitors like Google a run for their money. Yahoo Web Analytics is the result of Yahoo's April acquisition of IndexTools, a web analytics software provider geared toward online marketing.

With such a quick turnaround into a Yahoo product, albeit as a private beta for Yahoo's 150,000 small- to medium-size business web site customers, it's clear that Yahoo is gunning to gain share in a market it arguably should have been neck-deep in years ago. Yahoo's choice to acquire IndexTools and the upcoming features in Yahoo Web Analytics also speak loudly for how badly the company wants a piece of the market.

Specifically, Yahoo Web Analytics boasts "near real-time" data aggregation and visualization, which—if true—will be a significant leg up on Google Analytics' typical 8- to 12-hour turnaround time. In addition to faster data, Yahoo will also provide all analytics data in raw form, instead of a periodic aggregation of things like total visitors to a page.