There are plenty of reasons, but first and foremost for me is that I provide sites that are meant to be operated by non-developers and non-admins. All functionality must be provided to end users via modules and module edit permissions. An analytics module provides a logical focus for the feature, allows the user to obtain and enter their own Analytics code and specify what sort of data they want to record and what to ignore. Putting the code in the skin is simply not an option... even less so when the skins are standardised at host level. Putting the code in via txt/html modules is also not an option for mom and pop site owner - it would never get done. A couple of the Analytics modules also provide very extensive control over the data, far more than one could do in the skin. check the one I referred to on the previous post.

Rob

I distribute a free GA module on my site at http://www.ifinity.com.au/  Free as in no charge, no registration, nothing but a free download containing the source code.

While I originally used to put the code in my skin as Mitchel and others have said, I found this to be cumbersome and, as pointed out, not exactly friendly when it comes to having non-technical people use it.  In addition, my module has features to make it easy to set things like the session timeout (if your visitors tend to linger a lot), not tracking administrator activity (those 40 page views on the new page were just yourself fixing typo's) and external downloads (just how many people clicked on link x?)

It uses the latest GA.js code, automatically detects if you have switched to https and does so, plus it works out if you are running on localhost and comments itself out.

It's easy to install and use, and IM(humble)O is a far superior solution to embedding the code into the skin.

Feel free to visit and grab a copy.  I won't even ask for your email address :)

I have a free GA module up on South Village Software.com and on Snow Covered.

There are many more reasons to use a module than to inject the code in your template, too many to list actually.

http://www.southvillagesoftware.com