Re: Website Tracking with WebTrends

From: Randall Rensch <randy_at_rensch.com>
Date: Wed 12 Jul 2000 11:52:46 -0400

Ellie Deyneka <ellie_at_tuxtops.com> asked about
WebtTrends or other log analysis software:

I've used WebTrends Log Analyzer sporadically for about
a year, with mixed results. A few high and low points:

For keyword analysis, it seems pretty good, and until
this year it was uniquely keywords-capable in its
category. One advantage was that it reports phrases
and/or individual words. Each format has its value.

For tracking visits, I have not found it competent
enough to trust. Certainly not for one of my clients
whose site involves tracking a visitor from referring
URLs, through dynamic URLs, a separate secure server,
split visits, and other incongruities. In that case, I
understand the only hope is to track a cookie.
WebTrends Log Analyzer says it will do that, but you'll
have to implement the cookie yourself -- they offer no
advice or assistance in that regard. Correction. They
do advise buying their much more expensive marketing
product. :-) (Even if the tracking were reliable, the
Log Analyzer paths report is simply an unmanageable
series of pageview lists, longest visit first.
Ironically, its the one report where they do not offer
a chart, nothing to point out "trends".)

WebTrends has a wide variety of include/exclude
filters. Unfortunately, even if it could track an
entire user session start to finish, only some of the
filters apply to the whole session rather than a single
page. For example, if you wanted to report only on
visitors who received your "Thanks for your order"
page, you'd see their stats for that page, but not for
their full visits. On the other hand, if you screen
for authenticated users, or (I think) visitors from
specific referrers, there you (theoretically) get the
visitor's full session. Go figure.

There are many other features, which you likely know
from your visit to www.webtrends.com.

Incidentally, the $75 WebTrends product is almost
surely a lite version called Virtual WebTrends. That
is marketed through/to hosting providers as a
added-value service. It's been a year since I looked
at it, but it did not have the filters and had to be
run on the host server. WebTrends full version runs
locally (with optional online lookups to their database
of spiders, IPs, etc.), or (I think) you can run it
locally but looking at the online logs.

As for alternatives, there are a couple. One that I
have not yet tried is Analog v.4.01 an international
open source project. Try these URLs:
http://www.analog.cx/
http://www.analog.org/loganalysis/

Analog is apparently free, and a trusted source says it
gives more reliable tracking data than WebTrends in the
situation I described. As with Virtual WebTrends, there
is also a lite version of Analog offered free online by
most major hosting services. Don't confuse the full
version with that. I understand the full version has
caught up with WebTrends in the keywords/phrases
department (haven't verified this yet). I will be
trying out the full version of Analog soon.

There is also an online monthly service from WebTrends,
called WebTrends Live (
http://www.webtrendslive.com/default.htm ), which I
understand does write (or give you code that will
write) a cookie. At first blush it looks pretty
robust, although I don't know about filtering out
chaff, nor about privacy. Pay-as-you-go monthly, based
on traffic volume.

And, to be fair to WebTrends, even tracking a cookie
isn't easy. The Tracking Tutorial at Webmonkey.com (
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/e-business/tracking/tutorials/tutorial 2.html )
gives some insight into the issues.

If you find the absolutely perfect cost-effective
answer, please let me know.

Randall Rensch
marketing communication creative concepts
440 E 62 St 11A, NY NY 10021 +1 (212) 223-2679
randy_at_rensch.com www.rensch.com




Received on Wed Jul 12 2000 - 10:52:46 CDT