Six weeks after upgrading its Google Analytics (nee Urchin on Demand) service and slashing its previous $199 per month price to zero, the online search engine giant has still suspended new subscriptions after overwhelming demand ground the free service to a halt last November.

At the time Google cited performance and availability issues at the time and said it expects to take new sign-ups shortly. Clearly shortly is a relative term in Google’s world and six weeks on the service still remains grounded to existing users only.

Google claims it is still be busy beefing-up its computing infrastructure to handle more web analytics capacity. One Google official recently hinted might this would probably push back a resumption of the service to sometime before the middle of this year.

Meanwhile impatient customers that are frozen out can always turn to rival, but paid-for, on-demand web analytics services from similar self-serve providers like ClickTracks Inc, or more full-service providers like WebTrends Inc, Omniture Inc and WebSideStory Inc.

For existing Google Analytics users the dilemma is whether to wait, and risk service inconveniences, or dip into their pockets for a paid-for alternative that will get them up and running today.

Google is certainly putting the tempters out to keep customers hooked. It has now removed previous restrictions of the number of web sites that can be tracked for all users and has also improved reporting lag times (from several times a day as opposed to once every two days back in November). Some customers will also be hoping for better customer service on top of the infrastructure improvements as well. Google hasn’t commented on that request however.

Santa Cruz, California-based ClickTracks Analytics Inc, a company that perhaps competes closest with Google Analytics, is unfazed by Google’s web analytic play and even claims to have seen a significant jump in several of its business following the launch of Google Analytics last November.

Michael Stebbins, vice president of marketing of ClickTracks, told Computer Business review that the company’s lead count increased across all three of its business lines.

Our hosted web analytics offerings rose 20% while its licensed JavaScript Data Collector (JDC) business went to town, shooting-up 50%, he said. He pointed out that the company was aware of only three out of its 7,000-odd customers that had defected to the Google Analytics hosted service.

Rather than bash his rival, Stebbins welcomes a big-brand name like Google stepping into his market. Google [Analytics] is a rising tide that raises all the web analytics ships… [Google’s] announcement to offer free analytics is a great validation of our market, he said.

At the same time Stebbins also said that customers are also becoming acutely aware of data privacy and ownership issues around web analytics.

Companies aren’t just worried about cost [of service] but also accountability over their data. They’re getting more sensitive about where their web analytics supplier is storing their data, and transparency in terms of how it’s being used, he said. You’ll find that most companies are prepared to pay $100 per month to be able to yell at someone if their data is lost.

Higher-end web analytics rivals like WebTrends don’t see Google Analytics as a serious competitor, despite early predictions that its free service would somehow steamroller the rest of the market.

We’re not competing against them, insists Erik Bratt, corporate communications director at San Diego-based WebSideStory. We’re full-service and they’re self-service. They’re not in the same league.

He pointed to the robustness of the WebSideStory’s offering which comes with fully documented APIs and is backed up by a strong professional services and consulting division to help customers interpret the results, which according to Bratt is the most difficult part of the web analytics puzzle.

When Google bought Urchin Software many said the roof would fall in on our heads. But that hasn’t happened. We didn’t see any negative impact to our business when [Google] slashed the price to $200 per month, nor when they dropped it to zero.