Web analytics tools

I think it is because Google Analytics uses cookies to determine unique visitors - a slightly different formula.

I coming to the conclusion that counting the precise number isn't an important as seeing the overall trends and that getting caught up "exact" counts can keep you away from really pondering the data and using it. I may be wrong about that ...

I totally agree with Beth. Most organizations will be served well by focusing on just a handful of metrics, selecting one decent tool - and then sticking with monthly reviews and ACTIONS. Otherwise who cares about all those figures if nobody does nothing about it anyway!

I agree that it's not a good thing to get caught up with the numbers to such an extent that you're not analyzing and using the statistics. On the other hand, if the numbers aren't good to begin with, then you don't have a good base to act from. Faulty statistics won't help you make good decisions.

I think I am observing an error within the Google Analytics as well.

By default, the dashboard shows a date range of the past week. Within that week it shows hits on the "map" from Sydney, Melbourne, and Athens.

If I expand the date range to run from April 13th (my first date with Google Anayltics) through today's date, those hits from Sydney, Melbourne, and Athens do not appear on the "map". They disappear.

I have not yet discovered why this may be happening, but it does raise a question about the reliability of the statistics, or at least requires a tutorial on how to read them correctly. At face value, something appears to be amiss.

Anyone else observe this phenomenon?

Here at TechSoup we use Clicktracks and it analyzes the web logs. I would say that it is a medium-end solution. It is highly adaptable in the sense that it will count a combination of different pages. It also does path analysis. The drawback is that it is rather slow and hogs the machine that I use it on. There have also been some problems with getting it to work at all some times.

screencast

I finally posted my screencast and there is a companion wiki with resources.

http://analytics.wikispaces.com/

Beth is 100% correct in her "not getting caught up in numbers" notion.

When I'm looking at traffic, I am more interested where spikes occur and why? What content has drawn the most interest? Where do folks enter into my site repeatedly and where have they come from. Do they STAY, and if so, where do they hang out?

I am far more interested in quality visitors than quantity visitors.

I just got another cool book on web analytics .. called "Actionable Web Analytics" by Jason Burby and Shane Acthison. The subtitle says it all "Using Data To Make Smart Business Decisions" -- well worth a read.

I saw this interesting recent article on the subject of web analytics. The way the popularity of a website is determined is changing--i.e. time on a site versus page views. The article also brought up an interesting point that with the use of tabbed browsing, it's harder to accurately gauge the amount of time a user spends on a website. Just becuase a user keeps a website open in a browser tab for a long time, doesn't necessarily mean they are spending time on the site.

We just switched to Google Analytics from Urchin.
We're finding that the discrepancy between the way the two read stats is huge.

Does anyone know of current research into contextualizing web stats packages?

Megan:

The best information on that issue is in Avanish Kaushik's book (chapter 2) - Web Analytics An Hour A Day. It gives you a blow by blow comparison of how the different stat packages dervive their stats - e.g. some use cookies, some use tags, etc.

The best practice is understand it, but don't get hung up comparing the two sets of stats. The best practice is collect information from a variety of sources -you can just rely on web analytics for decision-making or you will be mislead - and look at trends over time.

Here is one of his pieces on the topichere

We enjoy using the new Yahoo Web Analytics and Google Analytics. Together they provide all the data and statistics one could want. In addition, we use a combination of some in-house tools we developed, which are now offered on our company site for free. Though perhaps readers interested in Web Analytics might be interested in trying out our tools. We encourage feedback so be sure to let us know if you think improvements can be made.

http://www.visible.net/tools/analyzer/

http://www.visible.net/tools/statistics/

I choose Live Web stats at http://www.webseomasters.com  that provides the traffic of my site, a variety of statistics and analytics helped me toanalyse my web traffic. Web Stats provides a wide range of choices on what to display on your Webpage or blog.
• Countries Visitors
• Your Basic statistics
• Online visitos
• All the Above or any combination of the above (Horizontal or Vertical )
• A Small image icon
• A Configurable hit counter (Select the font style, color , size, background color)
You can change the display on your page any time you wish, fast and easy.
Why do webmasters and bloggers have to track their visitors? Tracking the visitors is an essential part of any online business. Learn how many visitors you are getting and have the statistics tracking capability.
Using the advanced graphs on there cpanel my web traffic incresed.

At the same time i provide a live online visitors information that make my site more exiting and live.

It is a free service found at   :http://www.webseomasters.com  

 

Comparing stats from Google Analytics and Urchin requires you to ask some questions.

Google Analytics is actually based on the "page-tagging" or UTM method of tracking which is one method of visitor identification available with Urchin Software.Google acquired Urchin in 2005 and rebranded the Urchin On Demand SAAS as Google Analytics in November of 2005, and made it free to AdWords users.  Urchin can also analyze visits by IP + User Agent, which is a log analyzer method of visitor identification.

You may be comparing stats from Urchin 5 or Urchin 6 to Google Analytics reports.

Urchin provides a suite of IT reports which can be very valuable to hosting companies or any company that bills for bandwidth used. The Urchin reports do not automatically filter out visits Robots and Spiders--there are separate IT Reports for those visits. Google Analytics automatically filters out robots and spiders--unless there are new ones.

Now that Microsoft no longer supports Livestats, Urchin is the logical replacement. As an Urchin (from Google) and Google Analytics Authorized Consultant (since 2003 for Urchin and since Urchin was acquired by Google in 2005 for Google Analytics) , Friedrich Software can give you some training--onsite or desktop--about how to read these reports and what stats are most meaningful. Avinash's book and blog are great,  He does not talk much about Urchin, because he is the Google Analytics evangelist and came on board after the acquisition.