I recently received an interesting survey from Steven Ashley, senior research analyst at Robert W Baird & Company, a financial services firm. The survey tried to figure out the analytics tools employed by the 500 most heavily-trafficked websites around the world as of early December, 2008.

The report found that a surprising 45% did not use any web analytics software at all, but it turns out the surveyors were just looking for JavaScript tags, when -- as Web Analytics Report readers know -- many companies use logfile- or sniffer-based architectures (in part because they want to capture information and devices where JavaScript doesn't work). So the report surely undercounts actual usage -- by how much, I don't know.

Our anecdotal research suggests that a growing number of large enterprises in fact are taking a hybrid approach, and this is forcing vendors to adapt, as well as supporting new entrants in the marketplace. Anyway, it's impossible to tell who's "number one."

Nevertheless, the survey offers some interesting nuggets among the collection of sites that do employ JS tags. I won't reveal all the goodies here; you'll have to ask Baird for a copy. One stat worth noting: Baird found seventy websites with Omniture tags, while all other paid analytics vendors -- WebTrends, CoreMetrics, et. al. -- totalled only fifty sites combined. Again, not all vendors use exclusively JavaScript. Omniture actually experienced a net decline of four websites from Baird's Q3 survey, interestingly in large measure by losing five SiteCatalyst sites to free services like Google Analytics. Conventional wisdom held that Omniture would see more abandonment of its acquired HBX line instead.

In any event, Ashley remains quite bullish on Omniture stock, and noted its growing revenues throughout 2008. That income doubtless came from additional customers beneath those top 500 busiest sites, but also from what Wall Street praises as "increasing the yield" from existing customers. I think you know what that means.