November 18, 2009

iPerceptions Launches New Interactive Dashboard Compatible with Web Analytics Programs

iPerceptions has launched a new integrated web analytics solution called A&B Interactive Dashboard. The tool is designed to draw out behavioral and attitudinal data to provide marketers a clearer idea of what's drawing conversions and why. It's compatible with web analytics programs such as Google Analytics, Omniture, Coremetrics, and Web Trends.

Stephanie Hamel, Director and Treasurer of the Web Analytics Association is calling the tool a "game changer."

"Today, there is no simple way for companies to combine behavioral and attitudinal data without a tremendous amount of effort and cost," said Hamel. "Now, iPerceptions is offering a simple and easy-to-use dashboard that gives website operators the ability to flexibly interact with a fully integrated dataset that delivers real insight."

The A&B Interactive Dashboard provides:

• KPI Tracker to monitor user-selected KPIs over time (time on site, satisfaction, POV, task completion, etc.)
• Data Miner to empower users to crosstab, slice and dice clickstream and survey data together (referrals versus POV)
• Text Miner to enable users to browse and visualize associated open-ended text data and behavioral data (for example, reasons for abandoning your funnel)
• Benchmarks to track the evolution of the comprehensive website KPIs against the KPI of a self-selected combination of more than 30 industries and millions of consumer self-initiated surveys served by iPerceptions 4Q and webValidator Continuous Listening Solutions
• Outcome Predictor to enable the user to run priority grids and model out "what-if?" scenarios

iPerceptions is attempting to fill what they view as gaps in current web analytics tools.

"Marketers need to have their finger on the pulse of their online visitors," said Claude Guay, CEO of iPerceptions. "The only way to do this is to put the 'what' and the 'why' together, so you finally have context for the behavior based on their spoken intention. A&B Interactive Dashboard breaks down the divides of web analytics to give every marketer a fast, easy and cost effective way to drill down into the full range of data that makes or breaks a website."

One of iPerceptions goals in the launch of the A&B Interactive Dashboard is to provide additional to Google Analytics, a free web analytics tool. The new dashboard is designed to help interpret the raw data that Google Analytics provides. The solution can provide additional analytics without the costs associated with some of the paid web analytics tools out there.

This could be a great mid-range solution during a time when marketing budgets are tightened or small businesses are wary of how they're resources are being spent.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 1, 2009

Webtrends Acquires Multivariate Testing and Optimization Company, Widemile

Webtrends has acquired Widemile, adding their multivariate testing and optimization services to their offering. Widemile's platform provides advanced visitor segmentation, real-time reporting, intuitive wizards, and best practices training.

"Webtrends now offers the most open, elegant and powerful analytics and optimization platform available anywhere. Our customers want to further leverage the rich data set available with Webtrends Analytics, and Widemile's capabilities provide a natural path to help our customers achieve better performance and improved ROI," said Alex Yoder, Webtrends CEO.

The third-generation of Widemile's platform is known for its ease of use, algorithms and architecture, and reporting capabilities.

"The Widemile and Webtrends offerings fit naturally to address the macro challenges and opportunities facing our customers in the coming years," said Robert Bergquist, Widemile CEO and President. "The combination is a best-in-class integrated web analytics and optimization platform allowing users to plan online marketing programs with the assurance that built-in testing, targeting, and optimization solutions will maximize conversion rates."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 26, 2009

SEW Experts: Web Analytics 101, Part 2

When using Web analytics, it's easy to get caught up in all the numbers and lose sight of the overall goal of increasing your site's ROI. It doesn't do any good to use Web analytics to produce cool charts and reports, but then fail to act. In today's SEM 101 column, "Web Analytics 101, Part 2," Ron Jones illustrates how Web analytics can be used to make decisions to improve the effectiveness of an online marketing strategy and the performance of a Web site.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 19, 2009

SEW Experts: Web Analytics 101, Part 1

Web marketers who ignore analytics are like doctors who start writing prescriptions before bothering to examine or diagnose the patient. In today's SEM 101 column, "Web Analytics 101, Part 1," Ron Jones explains that without looking under the hood to see how your Web site is performing, and learning more about the people visiting your site, you're throwing away a huge opportunity.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 22, 2008

SEW Experts: Building a Data-Driven Organization

Organizations with streamlined operations, plus fast and accurate decision-making, can gain a decisive edge over competitors. In today's Web analytics and ROI column, "Building a Data-Driven Organization," Eric Enge explains that one important step to take is to become data-driven, by creating an organization where analytics emerge from a centralized structure driven by the top of the organization.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 15, 2008

Omniture Launches Analytics-Driven Site Search

Web analytics provider Omniture today launched Omniture SiteSearch, a hosted site search product it picked up in its Visual Sciences acquisition, which closed in January 2008.

The SiteSearch product was an early entry in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space. It was originally launched in 1999 as Atomz Search, part of its content management suite. Atomz was later acquired by analytics provider WebSideStory, which later acquired Visual Sciences. The entire company changed its name to Visual Sciences, and was then acquired by Omniture.

A few clients, including Verizon and BusinessWeek have been using SiteSearch as a standalone product, according to Jeff Minich, senior product marketing manager at Omniture. Today, it becomes an integrated part of the Omniture online marketing suite.

The biggest effect of this is the ability to impact site search results using data from Omniture's SiteCatalyst analytics package. So on an e-commerce site, for example, a search for "shirts" could be made to return the most popular shirts of the season, or those that return the highest margin, or those that are converting highest, Minich said.

"You can set business rules to break ties, or to push a page higher in the results," he said. "You can also combine metrics, and weight them relative to each other, and relative to the natural relevancy ranking in SiteSearch."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2008

SEW Experts: Real-Time Analytics with Woopra

Want a souped-up analytics package that allows you to track individual users, and potentially interact with them in real time? In today's Web analytics and ROI column, "Real-Time Analytics with Woopra," Eric Enge explains why Woopra may be exactly what you're looking for.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 21, 2008

SEW Experts: The Challenge of Mobile Web Analytics

One of the biggest challenges resulting from the growth in mobile Web use is measurement. Conventional Web analytics applications don't do a good job of tracking mobile Web site usage, making it difficult to tune and enhance your mobile Web site's performance. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "The Challenge of Mobile Web Analytics," Eric Enge offers some alternatives to tracking mobile Web site usage.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 7, 2008

A Seat at the Table for Web Analytics

I just got back from speaking on a multivariate testing panel at eMetrics in San Francisco.

A conversation I had with Marshall Sponder triggered this post. Marshall was bemoaning the fact that web analysts can't even get "a seat at the table" (i.e. serious consideration) within many companies. To me this was a statement of the obvious. There are three main reasons that web analysts are not taken seriously.

Trying to do too many complicated & custom things

Data mining and analysis is pretty open-ended. A smart person can think up many ways to slice and dice the data. The very word "analyst" conjures up images of complexity. This is "rocket science" and no amount of simplified Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on a customized dashboard for your boss will change that. If you dumb down the data too much then others may jump to the wrong conclusions. If you let them peek under the hood, then the complexity comes roaring back.

Looking in the rearview mirror

Analytics pores over data that was collected in the past. No matter how detailed or insightful it is, it can not necessarily be translated directly into actions because the conditions now may have changed significantly since the data was collected (e.g. traffic mix, seasonal factors, actions of competitors).

Not speaking the language of business

Analysts speak the language of numbers - but unfortunately not the right ones. Management only understands numbers in the context of finance. Does it make more money for us? Does it cut down costs?

So what can a web analyst do to get some respect?

1) Focus on mission-critical projects only - unless it can make a big impact on the business you should not waste your time on it. Intellectual curiosity and "what if" open-ended idea exploration should be limited to a small proportion of your time.

2) Get proactive - You should be working on actionable forward-looking activities such as landing page optimization which can actually lead to significant changes, and will not be filed away and never looked at.

3) Learn to speak in the language of finance - The only numbers that matter to your managers are the financial ones. Once you start presenting your projects and priorities in terms of their contribution to business performance you will get a lot more respect and attention.

You must reinvent yourself - instead of being viewed as a passive "analyst" you should become a business process architect who is relentlessly driven to improve the economics of your company.

If you do these things then you will be much more likely to get a seat at the table.

Posted by Tim Ash at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 15, 2008

IndexTools is Made Free by Yahoo

Recently I helped break the news that Yahoo acquired IndexTools. IndexTools has long been one of the industry's best kept secrets. It's a really powerful web analytics application that allows you to do some amazing stuff. Now Dennis Mortensen has let me know that the IndexTools Enterprise Version will be free.

As Dennis puts it, 80% of the functionality of Omniture at no charge. Whoa baby! This is very exciting news for the industry. This move by Yahoo, which should not be a big surprise in light of what Google and Microsoft has already done, will rip the covers off IndexTools as an industry secret, and truly bring it into the limelight.

Look for a lot of people to closely evaulate IndexTools as their analytics solution from this point forward. And don't think that it stops there. You just might see more announcements coming from IndexTools as their integration with Yahoo progresses.

Posted by at 9:34 AM | Permalink

April 9, 2008

SEW Experts: How to Measure Customer Satisfaction with Web Analytics

In a world where more Web transactions require multiple site visits, a measurement of satisfaction can tell you the likelihood of a visitor coming back to your site when they're ready to buy. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "How to Measure Customer Satisfaction with Web Analytics," Eric Enge looks at a new survey tool that allows you to measure customer satisfaction.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 11, 2008

Your Baby's Ugly - Why You Need Landing Page Optimization Now

All new parents think their drooling, wailing, wrinkled little midget is beautiful - and that's as it should be. The same seems to be true of landing pages. If an online marketing campaign is making money, it's taken as proof the landing pages are beautiful--and don't need further improvement.

In fact, landing pages typically range from barely acceptable to horrible. They are often at direct cross-purposes with the desired conversion action and stated goals of the business.

In this sorry state of affairs lies a terrific opportunity - fixing your landing pages can often lead to long-lasting double or even triple digit gains in conversion rate. This can change the economics of your business overnight.

Landing page optimization is no longer optional. It's one of the core activities that all online marketers must pay serious attention to. Landing page optimization spans the important topics of usability, copywriting, web design, and information architecture.

But landing page optimization also requires a proper grounding in math and test design. The messy reality of real-time marketing rears its ugly head. Organizational considerations required to build a testing program are key. You may need to change the mindset within your company.

I've covered these topics and more in my recent book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (John Wiley Press 2008). The book even got a really nice unsolicited writeup from SES London Chair Mike Grehan in his How To Avoid A Crash Landing column (and I didn't even have to pay a dime from the giant stash of payola money that I have available for such plugs).

I want to start a conversation and a revolution, but first we must break down the walls of denial:

Repeat after me: "My baby is ugly..."

Posted by Tim Ash at 8:19 PM | Permalink

February 22, 2008

SEW Experts: The Ginsu Guide to Search Analytics

The ability to track online (and in many cases offline) advertising to offline conversions has been the biggest hurdle in measuring ROI for many Web-based or Web-involved businesses. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "The Ginsu Guide to Search Analytics," Frank Watson shares some search analytics strategies from his SES London presentation.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 8, 2008

SEW Experts: Tracking and Analytics 101

The lack of uniform analytics definitions creates problems for marketers. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Tracking and Analytics 101," Frank Watson offers some basic definitions to get started on a conversation about using Web analytics for your search campaigns.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 18, 2008

CMS Watch says Google Analytics and Omniture are “over-hyped”

Earlier this week, CMS Watch said that Google Analytics and Omniture are “over-hyped.” This is a distant echo of the classic complaint by the Brits during World War II that the Yanks stationed in their country were “overpaid, oversexed and over here.”

In a press release, CMS Watch said that it “rejected the snowball of hype suggesting that Google Analytics and Omniture are the only remaining solid choices for Web Analytics.” The vendor-independent analyst firm said there are many established vendors who can provide advanced analytics functionality, particularly for mid-sized and larger enterprises and buyers in the UK and Europe. Now, it's perfectly understandable why CMS Watch would try to stir up a little controversy. It was releasing the 2008 edition of its Web Analytics Report, which evaluates 15 major Web Analytics suppliers based on vendor research, interviews with customers across a range of industry sectors, and hands-on testing of solutions. A little controversy goes a long way to get someone to pay closer attention to a report that costs $1,175 to $1,850.

But, the 340-page report addresses several hot issues. As Phil Kemelor, lead analyst for the report, said in the press release, “The web analytics marketplace has seen some instability and consolidation -- such as ClickTracks and SageMetrics being acquired by larger entities, and Omniture's imminent acquisition of Visual Sciences -- and this has led some to believe that web analytics has become a two-party system. But don't believe the hype that Google Analytics and Omniture are your only choices, because that's hardly the case.”

While Omniture is the largest pure-play web analytics firm and Google is both a noun and a verb, CMS Watch research finds that enterprises can select from a broad selection of established vendors, including: SaaS-only vendors • Coremetrics: Online Analytics • Digital River: Fireclick Advanced Warehouse • Google: Google Analytics • Nedstat: Sitestat • Omniture: SiteCatalyst • VisualSciences: HBX Analytics Hybrid: SaaS and Traditional Software • 24/7 Real Media: Open AdStream Analytics • Auriq Systems: RTmetrics • Foviance: WebAbacus • Indextools: Web Analytics 9.0 • Lyris: ClickTracks • SageMetrics: SageAnalyst • Unica: Affinium NetInsight 7.1 • VisualSciences: Visual Sciences Platform 5 • WebTrends: Analytics 8

And with Microsoft planning to enter this space later in 2008, the web analytics market is far from limited. Now, if you're not ready to plunk down big bucks to buy the CMS Watch Web Analytics Report, you can review a free, 40-page sample excerpt. And, if you want a second opinion, I recommend reading Stone Temple Consulting's 2007 Analytics Shoot Out.

Nevertheless, the timing of CMS Watch's announcement was fortuitous.

As Kevin Newcomb reported last week, Google's Conversion Optimizer is out of beta.

And yesterday, Omniture announced the completion of its acquisition of Visual Sciences.

Finally, on Tuesday, Feb. 19, there will be an Orion Panel with the All Star Analytics Team at Search Engine Strategies London.

Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, will be moderating a panel of thought leaders in the field of analytics, who will discuss everything from bounce rates, improving conversion, spotting trends and generally elevating your SEO/PPC analysis to a whole new level.

The panelists include: • Brian Clifton, Head of Web Analytics, EMEA, Google • Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder, Future Now Inc. • Steve Jackson, Senior Consultant, Web Analytics & Search Marketing, SATAMA, & International Co-Chair, Web Analytics Association • Jim Sterne, Target Marketing & Chairman, Web Analytics Association • Ian Thomas, Director, Customer Intelligence, Microsoft Advertiser & Publisher Solutions

Who knows, maybe someone will complain that the big, American web analytics vendors are “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” And, who knows, maybe someone else will have the cheek to remind everyone of the come-back that the Yanks had for this good humored banter back during World War II -- pointing out to their hosts that they were “underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower.”

This is all speculation, of course. Who knows what will actually happen at SES London. But I'm glad that I'm going to have a front row seat.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 1:23 AM | Permalink

October 30, 2007

Microsoft "Gatineau" Analytics in Beta

Microsoft has begun a beta test of its free Web analytics service, code-named "Project Gatineau." Invitations have gone out to some U.S. advertisers, and other U.S. advertisers can request an invitation, though the wait is long, according to Ian Thomas, project planner on Gatineau.

"If you've requested a beta invite, you'll be on the list and will receive one in due course - but remember, some people have been in the line since January, so please be patient as we ramp up users slowly; there's no need to remind us that you're waiting," Thomas writes on his blog, Lies, Damned Lies....

Thomas provides some details on initial features and reports included in Gatineau. They include demographic segmentation, custom taxonomies, funnel reports, outbound link tracking, inbound referrals, ROI reports, goal analysis, and client system reports. Gatineau has been in alpha stage for about a year. It's based on technology developed by Canadian Web analytics provider DeepMetrix, which Microsoft acquired in May 2006.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:36 AM | Permalink

September 5, 2007

Stone Temple Consulting Publishes Web Analytics Shootout Results

What started as a great idea for linkbait turned into a comprehensive analysis of Web analytics packages rivaling research from the largest firms.

Stone Temple Consulting has published the 55-page 2007 Web Analytics Shootout, the results of a nine-month study of seven top Web analytics packages on four sites. The report looks at performance, accuracy, and capabilities of Clicktracks, Google Analytics, IndexTools, Omniture SiteCatalyst, Unica Affinium NetInsight, Visual Sciences' HBX Analytics, and WebTrends.

The report is not intended to identify a "best" package, but rather to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the various applications so that potential buyers can understand how their own site structure might work with or against them, according to Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting. A major section of the report is a qualitative comparison of the various packages to help webmasters find the right fit for their situation.

I spoke to Eric about the results for today's SearchDay, "Comparing Web Analytics Packages."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:19 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: 7 Tips for High Value Analytics

In today's By the Numbers column, "7 Tips for High Value Analytics," Eric Enge gives you 10 key steps for maximizing your analytics investment, explaining how to overcome some of the limitations of analytics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 22, 2007

SEW Experts: Review of "Web Analytics, An Hour a Day" by Avinash Kaushik

In today's By the Numbers column, "Review of "Web Analytics, An Hour a Day" by Avinash Kaushik," Eric Enge reviews Avinash Kaushik's basic philosophy of Web analytics as defined in his new book, which helps you learn how to view analytics the right way.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 26, 2007

Web Analytics Shootout: Unica's Affinium NetInsight

Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting (and SEW Expert and blogger), continues his 2007 Web Analytics Shootout series with a review of Unica's Affinium NetInsight Web analytics package.

As with the other packages he's reviewed, Eric came up with a list of "cool things" that can be done with it:

1. Creating custom dashboards
2. Ad-Hoc Analysis
3. Drag, Drop, and Drill, Drill, Drill Down
4. Correlate Data
5. A/B Analysis mode
6. Integrate Offline Customer Data
7. Examine Individual Click streams
8. Robot/Spider analysis
9. Remarketing
10. Ask NetInsight Wizard
11. Heat Map Overlay
12. Date Comparison Reporting

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:05 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2007

SEW Experts: The Guts of an Enterprise-Level Web Analytics Audit

In today's Outsourced column, "The Guts of an Enterprise-Level Web Analytics Audit," Chris Boggs gives you the lowdown on a site side analytics audit, to help you overcome one of the biggest problems faced by large companies: knowing how to interpret Web analytics data.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

July 11, 2007

SEW Experts: The Role of Trust in E-Commerce Sales

In today's By the Numbers column, "The Role of Trust in E-Commerce Sales," Eric Enge reviews research from ScanAlert showing that e-commerce sites can profit by ensuring their sites are safe and secure.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:02 AM | Permalink

June 28, 2007

10 Cool Things to Do with IndexTools

Over the course of his Web Analytics Shootout, Eric Enge found IndexTools Web Analytics to be a powerful tool available at a relatively low price. He also found ten cool things to do with IndexTools:

1. Customize Reports
2. Customize Dashboards
3. Ad Hoc Scenarios
4. Filters
5. Merchandising
6. Path Explorer
7. Alerts, Events, and Color Coding
8. Segmentation
9. Campaign Management
10. Custom Fields

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:02 AM | Permalink

May 23, 2007

SEW Experts: Digging Deeper Into Google Analytics

In today's By the Numbers column, "Digging Deeper Into the Latest Release of Google Analytics," Eric Enge explores the subtle differences in the latest version of Google's metrics tool. Among other enhancements, Enge notes that the new interface does a much better job of presenting the most common numbers people look for up front.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:02 AM | Permalink

May 10, 2007

WebSideStory Rebrands as Visual Sciences

WebSideStory has consolidated its product lines and rebranded as Visual Sciences, the company it merged with in February 2006. The Visual Sciences name reflects the company's expansion beyond Web analytics to other channels.

“We remain committed to Web and Internet channel analytics and are expanding our application footprint. Our clients have made it clear they wish to use our real-time analytics capabilities to better understand all of the customer interaction data in their enterprises. The Web is one of the most important, but not the only, channel of this interaction,” Jim MacIntyre, Visual Sciences' CEO, said in a statement.

MacIntyre, a co-founder of Visual Sciences, took the reins from WebSideStory CEO Jeff Lunsford in October. A series of executive shakeups followed, with the December departures of CMO Rand Schulman and Steve Kusmer, GM of search and content solutions. Just this week, Eric Peterson, VP of strategic services, left the company to build a Web analytics consulting practice.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:55 AM | Permalink

May 7, 2007

Web Analytics Shootout Data Released

Stone Temple Consulting (STC) has released the first findings from its 2007 Web Analytics Shootout: a competitive comparison of 7 Web analytics vendors, whose software was run head to head across 4 different sites.

Analytics packages included in the study were Clicktracks, Google Analytics, IndexTools, Omniture SiteCatalyst, Unica Affinium NetInsight, WebSideStory HBX Analytics, and WebTrends. Data recorded included Visits, Unique Visitors, Page Views, as well as a variety of content groups. The traffic data varied significantly between packages, which STC President Eric Enge attributes to factors like implementation decisions, and first-party vs. third-party cookies and their deletion rates.

While none of them can be said to be more accurate than the others, any analytics program, implemented properly, can provide useful traffic data that can be compared to itself to produce useful results, Enge said.

"As Jim Sterne is fond of saying, if your yardstick measures 39 inches instead of 36 inches, it's still great to have a measurement tool," Enge writes in the report. "The yardstick will still help you measure changes with a great deal of accuracy. So if tomorrow your 39 inch yardstick tells you that you are at 1 yard and 1 inch (i.e., 40 inches), you know you have made some progress."

In addition, the report was able to highlight tendencies of each package to report high or low. For instance, HBX Analytics had a tendency to report lower traffic numbers, while Clicktracks and Google Analytics tended to report higher. These were not absolute in all cases, cautions Enge, but they do give you something to compare to understand the nature of the yardstick you're using, he said.

The various packages measured pageviews more consistently, since that metric is not as affected by the way the software is set up, or by cookie deletion among visitors.

The Interim Report also contains an analysis of third party cookie deletion rates compared to first party cookie deletion rates, showing that third party cookies get deleted at a rate that's 13 percentage points higher than first party cookies. So if first party cookies get deleted 3% of the time, third party cookies would be deleted 16% of the time. Cookie deletion can greatly affect accuracy in counting unique visitors, and visits, and understanding whether or not a user is a repeat visitor.

There is much more granular data to be found in the report, which is available at the Stone Temple Consulting site. STC is also working on a final report from the study, to be published in July, which will include an analysis of the features, functions, and usability of the 7 packages.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:55 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2007

Clicktracks Releases Click Fraud Detection for Smaller Businesses

Clicktracks Web Analytics announced on April 4, 2007 that they will launch a new product for SMBs which will be known as Clicktracks Pro Small-medium Business Version. The new product features Click Fraud Detection, and is priced at $2995.

This makes click fraud detection capabilities more accessible to small and medium businesses. This is a good step by Clicktracks to expand the reach of their analytics software, and the unique click fraud detection tools that they provide.

Posted by at 2:49 PM | Permalink

March 15, 2007

It's More Than Visits Alone

We have waited patiently for the web analytics companies to develop some consumption metric beyond page views.

It's worth thinking about yesterday's comScore news announcing daily visits, since it could become part of our tracking and selling parlance. However this metric doesn't tell the full consumption story.

If content changes a lot, then you'd expect higher frequency of visits. If someone watches his favorite re-run online, then frequency should be lower while engagement is far higher. If another person listens to her favorite online radio station while at the office, the frequency and engagement could both be lower than average.

Of course, comScore already reports statistics by industry, which will help daily visits make more sense. It's important to track visits data based on some understanding of the media type as well -- even if there's a need to adjust their data collection to do so.

Posted by at 11:00 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2007

Can "Visits" Replace the Pageview?

In an attempt to provide advertisers with a new way to measure site traffic, comScore has added a new metric to its Media Metrix subscription reports: the visit. A visit measures the number of distinct times people visit a site per day, with at least 30 minutes between each visit.

"We wanted to get more into engagement and intensity of usage, and help better understand who the audience is," Jack Flanagan, EVP at comScore Media Metrix, told SEW.

Visits will augment the "frequency" metric, which counts the average number of days per month a user visits, and "unique visitors," which counts the total number of people who visit in a month. Its advantage over "unique visitors" is that it can show more details on user engagement, Flanagan said. For instance, a visitor that comes to a site once in a month will be counted as one unique visitor, as will a visitor that comes to the site every day that month. With visits, that user can be shown to be a loyal visitor, who visits the site multiple times a day.

This is the first new metric comScore has added in a while, and it was mostly driven by the growing dissatisfaction with the pageview as more sites begin implementing technologies like Ajax or Flash that limit the usefulness of measuring an html-based action like a pageview.

In a post on Yahoo's Yodel Anecdotal blog last week, Chief of Insights Peter Daboll said he found that visits could be a useful addition to his analytics reports.

"With 'visits,' we get an added layer of data that, combined with reach (the number of users) and engagement (how long they stay), yields a much more comprehensive and meaningful portrait of people's interactions and activities online," he said.

Daboll was quick to point out that the visit is not a "silver bullet," given its limitation on measuring ad consumption and impressions. But it does provide more information for publishers to show how the value of its users.

"What it does provide is a valuable reference for advertisers to determine where to increase their ad exposure and budgets. The more loyal users and 'visits' a site has, the more opportunities a particular ad has to be seen. It's also a key measure of a site's value and impact to a consumer's life," Daboll said.

Flanagan said that the issue of ad impressions is being addressed with another product, Ad Metrix, which comScore is currently working on. That product, currently in beta, will report ad impressions and ad-exposed unique visitors, and will be available some time this summer, he said.

UPDATE: ComScore issued a press release this afternoon that provides more details, and shows the visits metric in action.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:35 AM | Permalink

March 7, 2007

Former WebSideStory CMO Joins Unica

Rand Schulman, the former CMO of Web analytics provider WebSideStory, has joined Unica as GM of its Internet Marketing Solutions Group. Schulman left WebSideStory in January, amid a shakeup that included the departure of Steve Kusmer, who joined the firm when his content management company Atomz was acquired.

Schulman will help Unica expand its Internet Marketing Alliance Program, a partner program launched last year to help tailor its products to the needs of marketers. Alliance members include search marketing firms 24/7 Real Media, Did-It, Efficient Frontier, and Performics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:41 AM | Permalink

February 12, 2007

Interview of Analytics Expert, Eric T. Peterson

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Peterson of the Visual Sciences Division of WebSideStory. Eric is one of the most well known and respected names in the world of web analytics.

Eric is also offering a free web analytics webinar on March 6, 2007, on behalf of the American Marketing Association and Aquent. The webinar is titled "Web Analytics Demystified: Ten Simple Strategies for Using Web Analytics to Improve Your Online Marketing Efforts." This will be a great initial primer for those of you looking to get started in analytics.

In our interview, Eric points out how proper content grouping and segmentation is not robustly supported by all systems, and even if it is supported, that it's key to have a proper analyst to set it up. Many companies don't get this right in their implementations and therefore get far less value from their analytics packages.

In addition, Eric discusses the unique capabilities of the Visual Sciences product. These include on the fly visitor segmentation, which allows for powerful ad-hoc analysis capability, and multi-channel data integration, which makes it easy to look at data, such as call center data, together with your web site data.

Posted by at 5:57 PM | Permalink

February 5, 2007

Stone Temple Interview with Jim Sterne

Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting continues his string of search-related interviews, this time in a conversation with Web analytics luminary Jim Sterne. Sterne is one of the most respected names in the Web analytics field, president of Target Marketing, president of the Web Analytics Association, producer of the worldwide Emetrics Summits, frequent SES speaker ... and an all-around great guy, to boot.

He offers some sage advice for new sites: "The very most important thing that any company needs to do is, answer the question, 'why do you have a Web site?' And by that, I mean, 'how do you define success?'"

He suggests marketers "figure out what constitutes success, determine which metrics will reveal whether or not they are getting closer or further away from success, and then start getting involved in continuous improvement."

He follows that with a word to those sites when they implement Web analytics for the first time: "Whatever you do, don't believe the first reports that come out of it. You are not going to have implemented it correctly."

The entire interview is well worth a read.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:52 AM | Permalink

January 8, 2007

Starcom IP Introduces Share-of-Influence Tool for Search & Display Ads

Even though study after study proves that "assists" are invaluable in driving the final click in a search campaign, or that users who see both display and search ads are more likely to convert, few marketers are willing or able to give proper credit to those pre-sale clicks.

According to this ClickZ News story, New Tool Aims to Pinpoint Pre-Click Ad Influence, Starcom IP introduced a new tool to measure the influence various ad types have on the final click before a purchase. Called Multiple Attribution Protocol, or MAP, the system assigns a share-of-influence to search and display ads, plus various sub-formats in the display category, such as homepage takeovers and graphical buttons.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:15 PM | Permalink

January 5, 2007

PayPerPost/Performancing Deal Called Off

The intended acquisition of Performancing's metrics solution, announced last week, has been called off. Both PayPerPost and Performancing express regret over the unrealized acquisition, which drew criticism when it was announced, and are drawing even more criticism now that it's fallen through.

PayPerPost says it will continue to look for another analytics solution to incorporate into its marketplace. Performancing will offer Metrics, its blog statistics package, to the open source community -- a decision founder Nick Wilson had been mulling before the PayPerPost deal came into the picture. He's recommending users migrate to Feedburner Blog Stats, which went live yesterday. Performancing is also continuing its plans to spin off its Performancing for Firefox extension, which it's rebranding as ScribeFire.

The company will focus on develop its Performancing Partners blog advertising network and attend to its "grassroots" community, Wilson wrote in his blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:19 AM | Permalink

December 5, 2006

Avenue A | Razorfish Releases "Actionable Analytics" Report

Avenue A | Razorfish released a new report today which addresses the connection between Analytics and future Search Marketing success. Yes I do work with AA|RF, but I feel that the report has excellent information that can be of use to any marketer engaged in the online space.

The report discusses in detail the topics of media analytics as well as web site analytics and CRM issues. The media analytics section suggests “measurements and analyses that allow you to determine challenges ranging from allocating marketing spend across media to creating the right mix of brand and direct response marketing."

It includes sections about brand versus direct response and developing advanced attribution models. The web analytics section claims that many current tools are “flawed if used as holistic media measurement solution, and should be augmented with purpose-built media analytics tools.”

The CRM section includes a case study of a project for Alaska Airlines. It recommends methodologies to create a seamless customer experience, and describes how to extend segmentation and personalization to email and direct mail. Lastly, it suggests how to plug online media into an e-CRM solution.

The report is available free via registration here. I will go to Search Engine Watch forums later today to start a thread to the findings presented, and will add a link here then.

Posted by Chris Boggs at 10:07 AM | Permalink

October 18, 2006

Google AdWords Releases Website Optimizer for Advertisers

Google AdWords has released a new tool for advertisers to enable them to easily test conversions on varying landing pages, headlines and ad copies. The tool then shows advertisers the testing results, including graphs, allowing them to chose the best converting ad options for their campaigns.

Interested advertisers can sign up for the beta here, although only a small number of advertisers will be accepted. You can also learn more on the Inside AdWords blog.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 1:37 PM | Permalink

September 29, 2006

How Google Webmaster Creates Query Stats, Now Weekly Updates

Vanessa Fox announced at the Google Webmaster Central blog that the query stats from within the statistics section of Google Webmaster Central will be now updated weekly, instead of every few weeks. The updates are most likely to occur each Monday but no specific time was mentioned. There are more details on how Google calculates the query stats in Vanessa's post.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:32 AM | Permalink

August 21, 2006

ClickTracks Acquired By J.L. Halsey

The ClickTracks web analytics service has big news today, that it has been acquired by marketing technology firm J.L. Halsey. J.L. Halsey also owns marketing tools such as Lyris, EmailLabs and Hot Banana. Congrats to John and all the crew over at ClickTracks! More information from the press release here.

Postscript: Halsey Goes Beyond E-mail With Two Acquisitions from ClickZ has more details on the sale, including the $10.6 million valuation on it.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:55 AM | Permalink

August 1, 2006

Enquisite: New Free Analytics Tool Launches

Enquisite is a new free analytics tool that is launching today. I'm not an analytics guru and so others will need to kick the tires. But one of the things that impresses me about it is that you're able to see locally where your traffic is coming from. In other words, if you've got concentrations of users in Los Angeles or Des Moines or Seattle this tool will expose that and what they're searching for. Thus it can help coordinate online and offline marketing. It also tracks and compares organic vs. PPC placement.

It also appears to have many additional features that are worth checking out.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:59 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

comScore Research Tool To Track From Search To Sale (Even Offline Sales)

ClickZ reports that comScore Networks will soon offer a new tool named qSearch Retail. qSearch Retail will track from the initial Web search to succeeding conversions, the conversions also include offline sales. comScore believes that 60-90 percent of all conversions happen offline. To obtain the offline sales data, comScore will use panel data and follow-up surveys to capture the offline sale.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:53 AM | Permalink

May 29, 2006

Free New AdWords Alerts Service

A free alert service kicks off with two alerts related to Google AdWords and AdSense. You can get daily email alerts with the costs of the expensive AdWords both by bid and by cost per day (not necessarily the most expensive, since Google doesn't report that. Instead, you get terms checked and found to be fairly pricey). There's also an alert by keyword service that emails you when new advertisers appear for a keyword you supply. Assuming you don't mind a flurry of email when tracking popular categories, this can be handy.

Posted by Detlev Johnson at 1:11 PM | Permalink

May 8, 2006

Microsoft Acquires DeepMetrix To Enhance adCenter Metrics

ThreadWatch release that shows Microsoft has purchased DeepMetrix, a Web analytics company. The purchase is to enable Microsoft to "deliver new Web analytics applications in future releases of Microsoft adCenter." Last year Google acquired Urchin, and then renamed it to Google Analytics in November and began AdWords integration soon after. Microsoft will possibly do the same.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:01 AM | Permalink

April 21, 2006

ClickTracks & Performancing Offering Up Free Stats

One of the nicest things about Google Analytics going free was that it helped give plenty of search marketers, especially smaller ones, the chance to try out powerful web analytics if they weren't already doing so. Want an alternative, especially with Google Analytics still on an invite-only basis? Long-time web analytics player ClickTracks is now offering a free version of their excellent product. Called ClickTracks Appetizer, it gives you a variety of key reports. Jennifer Laycock has a nice write-up about it at Search Engine Guide: ClickTracks Appetizer Serves Up Free Site Analytics. Need yet another alternative? OK, Performancing Metrics launched not too long ago. It's especially meant for bloggers, though I suspect it will work fine for any web site.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:58 AM | Permalink

April 17, 2006

Conversion Value Revealed When Using Google AdWords Conversion Tracker

When using the Google AdWords Conversion Tracker, you just may be revealing more about your conversion values than you might realize. When using the advanced option conversion value, the value you attribute for each conversion is revealed right in the on-page javascript you add to the site in the form of "var google_conversion_value = 9.99;"

This could easily be used by competitors to see what the value of a lead, signup or particular page view is worth to the advertiser, although the competitor would need to complete a conversion first in order to see the data.

For more details, there is a WebmasterWorld thread (paid subscription required to view).

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 12:30 PM | Permalink

March 1, 2006

Google Sitemaps Adds Top Keyword Positions, Top Mobile Queries and CSV Downloads

Google Sitemaps has announced the ability to see your average position for search queries, top search queries from mobile devices and the ability to now download "details, stats, and errors" to a CSV file that you can then do what you like with it. More details at Google Sitemaps Blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:35 PM | Permalink

February 6, 2006

Google Sitemaps Stats On Most Common Words In Your Anchor Text & Site Content

Along with the cool new robots.txt checker, Google Sitemaps has also released stats showing the most common words used on pages within your web site and the most common words anchor text pointing at your site.

The common words in site content stats will be good fodder for those who believe Google somehow tries to figure out a word "theme" for your entire site. Google's never claimed to do this before -- and seeing sites like Amazon or Wikipedia rank for anything when they are about nothing in particular should demonstrate that you don't need to target all your pages around a particular term or theme.

Still, if Google's generating stats like this for a site, it'll probably tip some people back to worry more about this. I wouldn't - but do as you deem best.

The anchor text analysis is far more intriguing. Again, Google has generally said that each page is measured by the links pointing at that particular page. So if someone points at a deep page in your site, that helps that particular deep page, not the site as a whole. And if someone points at your home page, that helps the home page, not the entire site (Yahoo, in contrast, has said it does some sitewide link crediting).

Now Google's reporting anchor text terms for an entire site -- which suggests that any link to any page in your site might have an impact on other pages. Or not!

Questions, questions. I'll drop a word over to Google blogmeister Matt Cutts to see about getting some answers. I'll postscript here, but I'd also say to watch his blog as well.

Finally, while these stats are promised, I don't see them live for all of my sites my sitemaps yet. If you don't as well, there's probably a delay in getting them rolled out and live.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 PM | Permalink

November 14, 2005

Google Renames Urchin Google Analytics, Makes It Free

Google has renamed its Urchin web analytics unit to be -- yep -- Google Analytics (as Gary predicted), in a move that follows with similar rebranding such as Keyhole being renamed Google Earth. And just like with Keyhole and Google's Picasa photo software, Google is turning Google Analytics into a free product.

The On Demand product is free for anyone. If you don't have an AdWords account, you're limited to five million page views per month (which is a lot). Need more? Make a $5 one time deposit, open an AdWords account, and you're set with unlimited page views.

The software based product remains fee-based. Google said that might change, but there were no immediate plans at the moment.

Google also said a number of new dashboards for different types of customers -- webmasters, advertisers and so on -- are being introduced to spotlight key metrics.

Worried Google will use your data or the data overall to better understand how much you are willing to pay for ads, based on conversions. Google said that's definitely not done, nor are there any plans to do that. Nor are there any plans to tap into the data as a means of improving regular search results or to identify "bad" sites, Google said.

Google acquired Urchin in March of this year and lowered pricing for it in May.

Want to discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Urchin Now Google Analytics, Now Free.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:01 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2005

MapStats Wins MS Virtual Earth Contest

I was just was reading the Via Virtual Earth site and noticed that a winner has been announced in Microsoft's Virtual Earth Competition for developers to show their creativity/coding skills and win prizes including some cash.

And the winner is... MapStats What does MapStats do?

The MSN VE site describes the winner this way: MapStats is a counter which visualizes the visitors of a website. The red squares indicate where visitors came from. The less opaque they are, the less visitors came from that location.

From the MapStats site: MapStats, the first website statistics analyzer which visualizes the visitors of your website on a world map, using Microsoft VirtualEarth. With MapStats it only takes a single second to see where your visitors are coming from. For a webmaster, this is very valuable information. MapStats obviously keeps track of the location of your visitors, but there's more! We also provide statistics regarding to referrals, the browsers of your visitors, pageviews, language, and much more.

OK, so where do I get a copy of MapStats to demo? You can check out a beta/demo here. Webmasters who are interested in testing are asked to send along their name and address.

Two other Virtual Earth based mapping sites got an honorable mention on the VE site:

+ CREmaps Real Estate listings plus maps.

+ ZoomtoHotels Nice combo of VE with hotel listings. Hotel data provided by Hotels.com ZoomtoHotels did not work with Firefox when I tested.

Postscript: Nacho points out that Urchin has offered a geo tool for some time. Until we can see what MapStats offers and those of you who use this type of technology (I don't) can get in there and bang on it, we can then understand one service vs. the other. Btw, A closer read of the text on the MapStats site might indicate that this is the first service of this type to incorporate MSN Virtual Earth technology.

Want to discuss? Visit this thread in the SEW Forums and share your thoughts.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:33 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2005

Web Site Measurement Hacks

Measuring the results of a search marketing campaign is a critical activity, but it's one that can be difficult or painful, especially if you're just getting started. Log file analysis tools, reports from paid search providers and other vendors can be both helpful and intimidating at the same time—especially if you're not really sure what you should be measuring.

A new book from web measurement guru Eric Peterson not only explains web analytics and measurement, it also shows you how to get the most from the array of tools and services available—even create your own system, should you like. I've got a full review of this excellent book in today's SearchDay article, Web Analytics, Demystified.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 6:13 PM | Permalink

October 5, 2005

ClickTracks 6 To Offer New Analytics Features

ClickTracks 6 is coming out on October 12. The popular web analytics tool, which I use myself, will offer a variety of new features including:

• Time Splitting: Seeing visitor behavior at different times on one screen
• Site Archiving
• A/B Split Tracking
• Sales Funnels
• Browser-based, rather than client-based, report viewing
• Page-based keyword reporting

A rundown on what's coming is here. Andrew Goodman's been through a demo and gives it a thumbs-up in his review at Traffick here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:48 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2005

Comments On Web Analytics Packages

Which Stats Package is right for you? is a very nice thread from late last month at WebmasterWorld well worth a look, where various members contribute comments about web analytic packages they like.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:32 AM | Permalink

September 13, 2005

Fathom Launches Online Marketing Analytics Tool

Fathom Breaks Into Analytics from ClickZ covers Fathom Online offering a new tool to give advertisers and agencies a "dashboard" to analyze marketing campaigns running on Google, Yahoo and other search engines and venues across the web. Cost is $3,500 per month, and the system opens to anyone later this month.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:35 AM | Permalink

August 25, 2005

Feed Migration To FeedBurner Complete!

The transition I wrote about earlier of moving our feeds to FeedBurner is now complete. If you've received this message in your newsreader, then the feed is working fine for you. If you're reading because your feed went dark and you came to the blog to see what happened, drop me a note, and I'll see if we can figure out what happened.

All five feeds Search Engine Watch has are now being managed through FeedBurner. What are these?

• Search Engine Watch Feed
• Search Engine Watch Blog Feed
• Search Engine Watch Forum Feed
• Daily SearchCast Feed
• Search Engine Strategies Blog Feed

You can learn about each of these feeds in more detail on our Search Engine Newsletters & Web Feeds page. It explains what each feed offers, has direct links to the feed addresses plus buttons to add feeds to many popular services.

I've also added FeedBurner "chicklets" that show the number of estimated readers for each of our feeds, except the SES feed. I haven't got tracking fully set on that yet.

Our main SEW feed is our oldest -- started back in 2003 -- and most popular with over 18,000 readers. The SEW Blog feed is almost a year old and has just over 3,000 readers.

Until now, I've had no real estimate of traffic to the feeds as well. I'll explore more about how FeedBurner does these estimates and share more stuff in the coming weeks. But in short, I'm loving it.

Aside from counts, I can also now tell how people are accessing feeds. There are interesting differences. Our main SEW feed is one of My Yahoo's top picks -- and as a result, nearly half of our SEW feed audience reads through My Yahoo.

In contrast, our SEW Blog feed is listed with My Yahoo but not on their short list of recommendations. Without that oomph, My Yahoo makes up much less of our readership for the feed, just over 15 percent. That's still a great amount, but Bloglines leads the pack, sending us 35 percent of our readers.

The SEW Forum feed flips things around again. My Yahoo is again on top sending us about 32 percent of our readership, while Bloglines follows at 23 percent.

Our Daily SearchCast feed is barely a month old, but what a difference in readership you get when doing podcasting. iTunes readers make up 30 percent, followed by Bloglines at 15 percent.

We're hoping we'll also see Odeo readers rise, as our channel became a featured channel this week. That's more than doubled our listeners at Odeo, bringing us up to 29 when I last looked.

If you haven't tried it, check it out. It's a pretty cool service. And don't forget to subscribe to us. I want to crack the top 40 and need about 140 more people to get there!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:16 PM | Permalink

August 24, 2005

Feed URLs To Change As We Move To FeedBurner

Later today, we're changing the URLs for our Search Engine Watch Blog, podcast and other search feeds so that we can better track who is making use of our content and how.

If all goes well, you won't notice the switch or have to change any settings. The old feed addresses will magically still operate. But I'm sending this message out now on the off chance that we might goof up. After the transition within a few hours, I'll send out another post that the new URLs are live. If you see that post, then you're fine. If the feed suddenly seems to have gone quiet -- please send me a note, because something may not be working.

Specifically, what's happening is that we're moving our feed URLs to run through FeedBurner. I've looked from afar and with envy at the type of stats and services that FeedBurner offers to those who want to manage and track usage of their feeds.

Want to have a single feed compatible with RSS 2.0 and Atom? FeedBurner does it! Want to know who is clicking on your feed links and what newsreaders or aggregators they're using? FeedReader does it! Want to easily add iTunes information for your podcast? FeedBurner does it -- and does it well even for free, if you're happy with basic stats. Want more, then you can pay a small monthly amount for that.

My hesitancy in using FeedBurner until now stemmed only from the fact that you had to use the FeedBurner domain as your feed address. In other words, a FeedBurner feed URL might look like this:

http:// feeds.feedburner.com/myfeedname?m=18282

Being the paranoid sort, I always want to have addresses using my own domain name. That's helpful if you decide to change tracking down the line, need to rename and redirect things and basically to preserve branding. In short, I like to be the master of my own domain :)

The great news is that FeedBurner recently added a way for site owners to have their own domains in their feed URLs. So I'm hesitant no longer and diving in with both feet! In my follow-up post, I'll list all of our new URLs, and you'll be able to see how our own domain name is implemented in them.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:22 AM | Permalink

June 17, 2005

Should You Trust Those Alexa Stats?

Everyone loves stats, and Alexa is a great place to get popularity data about your site for free. But is it accurate? If you're doing well, who cares! Actually, I do care -- and I've always felt the Alexa data was a rough guess about anything, at best. Wow My Alexa Ranking is Great! Should I Trust It? from Aaron Wall at SEO Book today takes a look at why he's dubious on them, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:43 AM | Permalink

May 27, 2005

GoLexa, Link Harvester & Recap Of Other New SEM Tools

The past few weeks have been pretty busy in terms of new search marketing tools appearing. I've now posted a recap of these for Search Engine Watch members, ranging from AdWords keyword generation tools to link analysis tools to Firefox add-ons for marketers. I especially wanted to mention these to everyone:

• GoLexa: This is a very cool tool for site owners. It brings back Google results and provides a ton of extra information about the pages listed.  
• Yahoo Link Harvester: Uses the Yahoo API to let you find links pointing at a particular domain or individual page. You can get back up to 1,000 listings. You can then easily get WHOIS info, Alexa info, Google full cache or text-only cache copy of the domain that the link is hosted on.

If you're an SEW member (thank you), be sure to see the longer version of this article with more tools and info.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:10 PM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

StatCounter & Alt Text For SEO

ClickTracks said it wasn't the only tracking service to make use of tracking codes for SEO purposes. Frank Watson's Some Tracking Companies Stealing Links looks today at how StatCounter apparently does the same.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:49 AM | Permalink

May 18, 2005

ClickTracks Launches Discounted Agency Plan

The ClickTracks web analytics service has opened a new ClickTracks Agency Program, providing a discount for agencies seeking to do web analytics for their clients.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:59 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2005

Questions Raised On ClickTracks Use Of Alt Text

Over on Threadwatch, Clicktracks Inserting Hidden Links in Customers Pages? has discussion of how ClickTracks tracking code made use of an ALT text attribute in a way that may have helped the company rank well for "web analytics" on major search engines.

Here's the situation. Below is the standard code that those using ClickTracks to monitor their web site activity would put on their site:

<script type="text/javascript"> document. write ('<'+'script type="text/javascript"  src="'+document.location.protocol+' // stats1.clicktracks.com/cgi-bin/ ctasp-server.cgi?i=datasetID"> < /'+'script>'); </script> <noscript> <a href="http://www.clicktracks.com/"> <img src="https://stats1.clicktracks.com/ cgi-bin/ctasp-server.cgi?i=datsetID&g=1"  alt="Web Analytics" border=0> </a> </noscript>

The first section is acted upon by those using browsers that can process JavaScript. It lets ClickTracks know that the page has been viewed. FYI, ClickTracks says 96 percent of pages it processes are viewed by JavaScript capable browsers.

The second part is acted upon by those with JavaScript switched off. In their case, an image is loaded, an alternative way to know that the page is viewed.

Search engine spiders show also only see the second part, as they generally do not process JavaScript. But since they don't see the image, the visit isn't recorded.

The controversy in the thread comes over the ALT text that's associated with the image. That's because the image itself is a link to ClickTracks.com, with the ALT text saying "Web Analytics." That means the link will be associated with those words, similar to how it might have been an ordinary link with those words.

For example, look at the bottom of this cached page in Google. I'm showing the text-only cache. At the bottom, you'll see the last two words are a link, "Web Analytics," that leads to ClickTracks.

So, something ClickTrack did to help with rankings? Yes, said John Marshall, CEO of ClickTracks, when I emailed him about it:

There is alt text in there because we felt it was OK to get some slight keyword ranking from it (it's widely done by competitors also).

Marshall also added that it's fine that the ALT text be altered or removed, if anyone is concerned about giving ClickTracks some type of benefit. In addition, ClickTrack is going to offer customers two versions of the script in the future. Anyone concerned can select an option that doesn't provide a link benefit.

Did it work? ClickTrack is definitely in the top listings for "web analytics" at Google and Yahoo, as the thread shows. It certainly has gained links because of the technique. But as also discussed in the thread, it may very well have ranked well for those terms even without using the ALT text.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:45 AM | Permalink

May 12, 2005

Online Poker Searches Not Driving Wikipedia Popularity

Recent news from competitive intelligence and analytics firm Hitwise that the community-created Wikipedia encyclopedia saw a rise in popularity over the past month got me thinking. Did this have more to do with a link bombing campaign by some bloggers to push Wikipedia into the top results for "online poker" at Google? After some checking, Hitwise says that's not the case.

The story now posted for Search Engine Watch members goes into depth about why bloggers want Wikipedia to do well for online poker and how stats show the campaign isn't behind Wikipedia's rise in general popularity. Plus, a look at who is doing tops for searches on online poker and the surprising top search term that's sending Wikipedia traffic.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:17 PM | Permalink

May 2, 2005

Back To Basics: Web Analytic Terms & Log File Analysis

What's the Score? Basic Web Analytic Terminology from Scottie Claiborne at Search Engine Guide is a nice refresher on some basic terms related to web site statistics and analytics. Hits versus page views, what referrer strings can show and so on. When that's whetted your appetite, Log file analysis for search engine optimization from Kalena and Jerry Jordan at Pandia digs in a bit deeper into the basics of key stats you'll want to monitor.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:45 PM | Permalink

March 29, 2005

NetIQ To Spin Off WebTrends

NetIQ is selling its WebTrends web analytics division -- which also is home to the WebPosition rank checking tool -- to the division's management team and a private investment firm Francisco Partners for $94 million. WebTrends to Go It Alone from ClickZ has more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:39 PM | Permalink

January 28, 2005

New ClickTracks Optimizer For Mid-Range Tracking Needs

ClickTracks is a popular web analytics tool that I personally use and love. Now the company is releasing a new ClickTracks Optimizer version ($1,200 or $100 per month) to sit between the basic ClickTracks Analyzer service ($500 or $50 per month) and ClickTracks Professional ($3,000 or $180 per mont) for those with high-end needs. The tool will provide tracking of robot and spider behavior, email tracking, three user licenses and custom campaign creation. News of the new tool is supposed to go up on the site today here -- watch the products page for it.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:58 AM | Permalink

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