In an era when web analytics ASPs are looking for any advantage, positioning yourself as a domain expert by publishing syndicated research data – and perhaps even charging for it – looks like a safe side business.

To that end, Fireclick announced that they’re providing a site for free distribution of a number of metrics. Check out http://index.fireclick.com/ for a dozen or so numbers around conversion rates and site metrics.

Fireclick doesn’t say much about the methodology used, so it’s hard to know how representative these numbers are, or even how comparable they are. For instance, “Cart Abandonment Rate” for Specialty sites are in the mid 60 percent, while Electronics sites are in the low 80s. Similarly, Specialty page views (sorry, still can’t bring myself to say ‘session length’) are double that of Electronics. Is this due to the nature of the products being sold (and thus the audience), or perhaps one or two outlier sites that are skewing the numbers?

Still, kudos to Fireclick for publishing these metrics, and for resisting the temptation to publish trivia like “browser market share.” More data for the data geeks. You know who you are.