Yahoo! has made a number of improvements to its Web Analytics application for website owners.

The tracking and reporting tool now comes with new demographics and interest groups reports, segmentation and filters for age, gender and interest categories.

It also features a new demographics and interest groups dashboard, together with custom fields and a revamped reporting interface.

Furthermore, users are now able to track a higher number of actions and set up more scheduled reports than previously.

Yahoo! warned e-commerce organisations that using the custom fields feature does require manual set-up and page tagging, however.

Yahoo! developed the tool from technology acquired through the purchase of IndexTools last May. It rebranded the product under its own name in October 2008.

"The information available in your analytics reports can play a major role in helping you increase your store's sales and revenue, along with the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns," remarked Jennifer Farwell of Yahoo! Small Business in a post on the Yahoo! Store blog.

Yahoo! Web Analytics is being rolled out in stages to users of the Yahoo! Small Business service, as well as to advertisers and third-party application developers.