PureWebAnalytics.com upgrades to WordPress 2.3.3 and got some new Web Analytics tools

April 11, 2008

As you may or may not have noticed I’ve made some changes to the website lately. I was recently invited by Microsoft to Beta Test their adCenter Analytics application so I decided to track the traffic on my site with it.

I have also decided to add QuantCast to PureWebAnalytics.com just to have the use of a different website analysis tool.

Having various website analysis tools available and at the ready is that I have the means to compare statistical data across a few website analysis tools as compared to just having one. In my own opinion, Google Analytics should always be a tool that you use in website analysis paired up with another tool but then again that is my preference.

Lastly, I’ve upgraded the website platform from WordPress 2.1 to 2.3.3 and I plan to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress 2.5 shortly.

Luc

Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, PureWebAnalytics News | Leave a Comment 

Google Analytics vs. Microsoft adCenter Analytics - Round 1 - Usability

April 8, 2008

Spike in Traffic from StumbleUponI recently installed the Microsoft adCenter Analytics tracking code to my website. I find that having more then 1 web analytics tool installed in some cases is not “overkill” especially when you are comparing data to ensure its accuracy when you observe behaviour that is not normal. The other day I noticed about 87 visitors come in from a referral from StumbleUpon. I myself do not have an account and the time with StumbleUpon (I do now). But a 100 visitor rise in traffic is enough to make me sit up and take notice. The first thing that I noticed comparing in two different systems is this…

The amount of forensics you can do on your data

Being able to understand the “why” and “how” of observing patterns in data is key to success to performing solid website analysis. I noticed that Google Analytics did a good job when it came to giving me the name of the source, durations and narrowing it down. However Microsoft was limited (even though it’s a Beta version) at best and you really have to dig to find the information you want. Have a look…Microsoft adCenter Analytics graph

I find a lot lacking in the Beta release from Microsoft because Google Analytics is at a point where it is very user-friendly so in my opinion from a usability standpoint Microsoft could learn a ton from Google Analytics in terms of application functionality.

The graphs are too small; the views that are offered lack the thought of the people that will be using it. It wasn’t designed with people in mind. Most times people want more options of analysing and sorting data then just “view contents of the group” or “view segmentation by item = Age, Gender, Occupation or Geographic Location”. In terms of segmenting data for marketing efforts I feel that this is the bare minimum which Google Analytics offers more then vast amounts of information.

Because the term “Web Analytics” is turning into a big keyword for the next version of the web, an internet based on intelligence, intelligent web applications and the people who use them in everyday life, naturally many people believe that you just need to pick a tool, install and configure it and start tracking traffic but if Web Analytics is used wisely it runs deeper then the tools you use and it is a practice of applying tools and knowledge and business smarts to develop your business online.

Luc

Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, Google Analytics, Microsoft adCenter Analytics, Site Optimization, Tips, Tricks and Tools, Trend Analysis, Web Analytics | Leave a Comment 

Installing your Microsoft adCenter Analytics Tracking Code

April 3, 2008

I got an invite today to start using Microsoft adCenter Analytics Beta edition. After using Google Analytics for the last 6 months I must say that while I am curious about Microsoft adCenter Analytics there is just something about Google Analytics that cannot be beat.

So how easy is it to install Microsoft adCenter Analytics? Well it is pretty easy. They offer a wizard to help a person who doesn’t understand coding to install it automatically which is something that Google Analytics may want to think about. But if you want to install it manually you need to place the following code before the </body> on your website.

<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript” src=”http://analytics.live.com/Analytics/msAnalytics.js”></script>

<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”>

msAnalytics.ProfileId = ‘XX##’;

msAnalytics.TrackPage();

</script>

From there you can begin to track your traffic using Microsoft adCenter Analytics.

Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, Microsoft adCenter Analytics, Site Optimization, Tips, Tricks and Tools, Web Analytics | Leave a Comment 

Setting User Defined Segmentation in Google Analytics

April 3, 2008

With all the writing that I have done on analytics in general and Google Analytics more specifically I have never really covered anything about setting up User Defined Segmentation in Google Analytics.

What is User Defined Segmentation?

User Defined Segmentation is a way of setting up variable in your web presence in a way that triggers your analytics platform to save it as a stored result. You do this by setting up a cookie using the _utmv (User Defined Segment Variable) cookie and giving it a value in your code.

You can set the value of this cookie in one of the two following ways depending on whether you are running Urchin.js or GA.js

In Urchin.js it is set using the following function…

__utmSetVar()

In GA.js it is set using the following function…

pageTracker._setVar()

How do I setup User Defined Segmentation in Google Analytics?

You need to setup User Defined Segmentation from your website and from your Google Analytics account.

From your Google Analytics Account

You need to go to your Visitors Page and then click on User Defined to see the traffic that you are tracking

From your Website

You need to insert the following code into your web page(s) to “define” the users in Google Analytics. Lets say we wanted to track people who signup to a newsletter on a website. You can set it in the following ways…

Urchin.js

<body onload=”javascript:__utmSetVar(’myUserDefinedVariableHERE‘);”>

Or, in GA.js

<body onload=”javascript:pageTracker._setVar(’myUserDefinedVariableHERE‘);”>

From here you need to login to your Google Analytics account and go into “Visitors” and “User Defined” to view the tracking of the User Defined Segmentation.

Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, Google Analytics, Tips, Tricks and Tools, Web Analytics, Web Intelligence | Leave a Comment 

Using Pattern Matching in Robots.txt

April 2, 2008

Originally I had written an article about using your Robots.txt file. The Robots.txt file can be used to tell robots sent out from various User-Agents like GoogleBot to tell them what they can and cannot see. This can be applied to company intranets, web portals, forums, personal websites, consulting websites where you want to restrict search engines with what they can and cannot see.

So how can I use Pattern Matching and what is it?

Pattern Matching means that you use your Robots.txt file to find and block certain robots, spiders and/or crawlers from various user agents based on the pattern in the URL.

Matching using a sequence of Characters using *

You can use the asterisk (*) to match sequences of characters and it would be written similar to this…

User-agent: GoogleBot
Disallow: /images*/

This would basically block GoogleBot from crawling the images directory on your website and any subdirectories under the “images” directory. You can customize this for any User-agent and directory name (/images/, /cgi-bin/, /myphotos/, etc.) that you would like.

Matching the end characters of the URL using $

You can use the dollar sign ($) to match characters to the end of a URL and the code would be written similar to this…

User-agent: GoogleBot
Disallow: /*.php$

This would allow you to block any URLs that end in .php. You can add any file types you would like to keep robots from crawling like .PDF, .doc, .html, etc. As I said before there are many reasons why someone can and in some cases should use Pattern Matching in their Robots.txt file.

Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, SEO / SEM, Site Optimization, Tips, Tricks and Tools | Leave a Comment 

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