Urchin Software – major features
Urchin 7 is a web anlytics application with a long pedigree. It is
the result of more than two years' development from Urchin 6 which
itself was released after three years in the lab following the
legendary Urchin 5 that incorporated seven years development from
concept.
The product is, in our view, the web analytics
package which presents one of the very best combinations of capability,
value, ease of use and user acceptance. This combination of proven
Enterprise-class performance with
uncommon ease-of-use makes Urchin most often the best choice for
businesses and hosting providers of all sizes.
Urchin is structured so that all the modules which were familiar
even to Urchin 5 users are identifiable and supplied together
under a single licence. Here we describe the functionality
of the major components. From here, you can go on to get more
detailed information about Urchin, including particular details
about the new features of Urchin 7 which make it distinct
from Urchin 6.
What’s new in Urchin 7?
Urchin base component
The Urchin Base component may be all that a medium-scale
installation uses. It contains all of Urchin’s standard functions other
than e-commerce tracking and campaign reporting, allows for up to
1,000 reporting profiles and has no restrictions on the number of
server log-file sources to which it may be applied.
A Profile is a container for a set of rules governing the processing of log files
and the production of reports. They may be thought of as folders for
particular collections of reports and are convenient when groups of
users need to have access to different collections of reports.
If an organisation wishes to set up more than 1,000 profiles,
additional licences are required for each tranche of 1,000 profiles
Larger web sites are often served by more than one web-server in
a load-balanced configuration. This is a particular instance of when
Urchin must accommodate more than one log source. Urchin may be
configured to accommodate multiple log file sources in such a way
that it correctly associates
the data when the multiple sources relate to a single domain.
E-commerce Reporting component
The E-commerce Reporting component contains the functionality to follow
visitors all the way to the point of purchase and actually measure
ROI relating to various aspects of a website and individual
marketing campaigns. In connection with a shopping cart, you can
analyze transactions and revenue by product and quantity. Revenue
can be segmented and reported by referrals, search terms and
domains. Buyers can be located and grouped by country, by state or
even city.
The module works with the common e-commerce Log Formats ELF2 and
ELF, or allows a custom format to be defined and used.
Campaign Tracking component
The Urchin Campaign Tracking component accurately tracks visitors from
a source – such as a search engine or a link in an email piece –
through to a conversion or transaction on your site. It shows
which keywords, search engines, marketing campaigns and ad content
lead to conversions so that marketing spend can be effectively
targeted.
With the Urchin Campaign Tracking Module, you
gain the benefits of:
Multi-Session
Tracking – visitors can be tracked from lead to
conversion across multiple sessions
ROI Analysis –
the keywords that convert to purchases may be easily
identified so that your paid search expenditure can be accurately
targeted
Goal Conversion
– actual purchases and similar events can be
labelled as goals for verification and reporting
A/B Testing –
the CTM supports testing of alternative content to
identify which versions work in achieving goals
Day Parts Reporting
– reporting can show when your target audience
is away so that you can control the delivery of paid-search
advertising and avoid wasting money
Multi-Dimensional
Comparisons – performance comparisons can be made
across marketing campaigns, advertising channels, e-mail shots,
search engines, specific keywords, organic searches and more
More Urchin detail
Fundamentally, Urchin is a server-log analysis program, but
its sophisticated unique visitor reporting goes far beyond what
was otherwise available at the time when the first version was released.
Accurate visitor and session identification is performed by the
Urchin Traffic Monitor. The UTM is a highly accurate system that
is
specifically designed to identify unique visitors, sessions, exact
paths, and return frequency behaviour. The JavaScript page tags
which are installed to communicate with the UTM also overcome the
accuracy problems associated with page caching and the intervention
of proxy servers.
Structure and functionality
Urchin consists of 4 primary components:
The Admin Server
The Log-processing
and DNS resolution engine
The Visitor
Interaction Data Architecture (VIDA) database
The Scheduler
The Admin Server is Urchin's central component. It is a web-based
control panel system, powered by a customized Apache web server that
controls all the other Urchin components. The Admin Server lets you
access and control the Urchin system from any computer on the
Internet (by turning on remote access and reporting).
The log-processing and DNS resolution engine does the “heavy
lifting” in the Urchin system, converting large raw log files into
meaningful data, translating IP addresses to domains, and entering
the information into the VIDA database.
The VIDA system is a highly-specialized, optimized, proprietary
database for quickly entering and extracting web analytics data.
This analytics-specific database is a significant part of Urchin's
speed advantage over the competition.
The Scheduler regularly checks the configuration database for
scheduled tasks that need to be run, and executes Urchin to process
them at their scheduled times.
The Urchin Reporting Interface
The Urchin Reporting Interface is the system that displays the
actual Urchin reports. Users may access it by logging in to the
Urchin Administration Interface and selecting a report to view. The
Administrator has access to all reports. Users have access to those
reports specified by the Administrator.
Each Urchin Profile that has been configured has its own set of
reports. By clicking the magnifying glass icon next to a profile, a
user can view the reports for that profile.
Review Urchin’s features
or download a trial copy
Learn more
about Urchin on Google's web site
Learn more about
what’s new in Urchin 7
Contact
ivantage to buy an Urchin licence or for more information
