Wednesday 4 April 2012
Wednesday 30 November 2011
What are the upsides of using Webtrends vs Omniture SiteCatalyst?
We consult companies using either tool (and have no obligation to either vendor, though we will admit a bias towards omniture). Sean has some good info, but a bit of misinformation as well. For points #2 and #4- omniture allows you to choose which kind of cookie to use- 3rd party, 1st party, or a hybrid (friendly 3rd party). This is very flexible for cross-domain reporting. Nor is it true that "with SC each domain gets its own tag"- no clue where someone got that idea.
It is true, though, if you want to use 1st party cookies on an SSL site you have to set it up, and while the process has quite a few steps, the overall amount of work involved isn't that high- I haven't seen it be an impediment for many companies. And we haven't seen any cases where adobe has mismanaged those certificates- the incident with paypal was not the fault of adobe, but (by paypal's own admission) "due to the recent implementation of Microsoft's Extended Validation certificates".
Webtrends can use cookies, IPs, or query params to track a user but none of those methods- used by any analytics vendor- is fool proof. IP addresses can be dynamic, cookies can be deleted, params are a pain to manage. And there will always be discrepancies between those methods.
In our opinion, set up of omniture can be as complicated or simple as you want it to be, but with complexity comes a LOT of flexibility. You choose what parameter to track your campaigns with (and only need one tracking code- any info you have about that tracking code can be applied retroactively without exposing your users to huge long URLs with a billion params.) You choose what to capture in your reports and how to group that data (and if 150 custom variables isn't enough, you may want to rethink how you are using your data- "data hoarding" is a huge industry problem that creates work without providing value.)
Webtrends definitely has prettier reporting and more powerful ways of getting data in or out (and their facebook integration is fantastic), but ad-hoc reporting for a new business question can be a huge pain if you haven't planned ahead just right (as I was recently told, setting up a conversion funnel for a new functionailty we were implementing was a simple as 30 steps!). Webtrend's log file tracking technology was amazing and state-of-the-art in 2001 but they aren't keeping up with their competitors for innovation in tracking. For instance, in item 5 from Sean, he states "Omniture’s infrastructure was built purely for real-time analysis. Thus, the system is pod-based and analyzes in a linear fashion—collection, processing and rendering are all part of a single, linear process." This WAS true but changed with sc15. Omniture is evolving as the needs of the industry are evolving.Forrester recently, as an unbiased 3rd party, did a review of all the tools and how they compare: see the Forrester Wave report for Web Analytics for q4 of
It is true, though, if you want to use 1st party cookies on an SSL site you have to set it up, and while the process has quite a few steps, the overall amount of work involved isn't that high- I haven't seen it be an impediment for many companies. And we haven't seen any cases where adobe has mismanaged those certificates- the incident with paypal was not the fault of adobe, but (by paypal's own admission) "due to the recent implementation of Microsoft's Extended Validation certificates".
Webtrends can use cookies, IPs, or query params to track a user but none of those methods- used by any analytics vendor- is fool proof. IP addresses can be dynamic, cookies can be deleted, params are a pain to manage. And there will always be discrepancies between those methods.
In our opinion, set up of omniture can be as complicated or simple as you want it to be, but with complexity comes a LOT of flexibility. You choose what parameter to track your campaigns with (and only need one tracking code- any info you have about that tracking code can be applied retroactively without exposing your users to huge long URLs with a billion params.) You choose what to capture in your reports and how to group that data (and if 150 custom variables isn't enough, you may want to rethink how you are using your data- "data hoarding" is a huge industry problem that creates work without providing value.)
Webtrends definitely has prettier reporting and more powerful ways of getting data in or out (and their facebook integration is fantastic), but ad-hoc reporting for a new business question can be a huge pain if you haven't planned ahead just right (as I was recently told, setting up a conversion funnel for a new functionailty we were implementing was a simple as 30 steps!). Webtrend's log file tracking technology was amazing and state-of-the-art in 2001 but they aren't keeping up with their competitors for innovation in tracking. For instance, in item 5 from Sean, he states "Omniture’s infrastructure was built purely for real-time analysis. Thus, the system is pod-based and analyzes in a linear fashion—collection, processing and rendering are all part of a single, linear process." This WAS true but changed with sc15. Omniture is evolving as the needs of the industry are evolving.Forrester recently, as an unbiased 3rd party, did a review of all the tools and how they compare: see the Forrester Wave report for Web Analytics for q4 of
Monday 21 November 2011
Tracking Google Secure Search in SiteCatalyst
This week, Google announced that they plan to start migrating their users who are logged into their Google accounts over to using the Google secure site (https://www.google.com). Their intention is to try to make searching more secure for their users. Here is Google’s announcement of the change: Making Search More Secure
That sounds like a positive change, but how does this effect the analytics community? Well, one of the features of using the Google secure search site, is that Google removes the keyword value that was searched for from the referring URL (the q= value). In other words, if you do a search from the Google secure site, the keywords you searched will not be passed along in the referrer information. The referrer string is what your analytics vendor uses to determine what keywords led visitors to your site from Google.
Here is an example of the referrer string in action. I did a search on the standard non-secure Google site for the term “keystone solutions”.
Clicking the first result, we are taken to the Keystone Solutions site. Checking the Omniture debugger, we can see that the value of the keywords we sarched for appear in the referring URL string as the q= value.
Now lets go to the Google secure site and perform that same search
Again, I click the first result and arrive at the Keystone Solutions site. Checking the debugger this time gives us a very different referring URL value. Here you can see that the q= parameter that held the value of the searched keywords on the non secure site is now blank. Our searched keywords have been removed.
So what direct effect will this have on our reporting? Well, if you track search keyword volume you will begin to see a decline in the keywords that brought traffic to your site. There is no way to capture that missing keyword value. What I would like to see is in the keywords report some indication that a search was still made, but the visitor did it using the Google secure search page, so I can still have an accurate track of my overall searched keyword volume. What can we do about this?
What I have here is a little chunk of code that will inject the value of “Google Secure Search” to the referring URL keyword value (q=) when the visitor came from the Google secure search site, so I can see how many of the searches that were performed, that led visitors to my site, were done using the secure search.
?1 var kr=document.referrer,kk=s.getQueryParam("q","",kr),ks=s.getQueryParam("esrc","",kr);if(kr.indexOf("www.google.com")&&!kk&&ks=="s"){var ksr=kr.split("q="),kq="q=Google%20Secure%20Search";s.referrer=ksr[0]+kq+ksr[1]};
All the code needs to work is the getQueryParam (which just about everybody should be using). Just place that line in the s_code file near the end of the s_doPlugins section and thats it. For all other search engines and for non-secure Google search, everything will work as it always has, but when you do a search using the Google secure site, then you will get the injected “Google Secure Search” value in the keyword variable.
Here is an example of it working in action:
That sounds like a positive change, but how does this effect the analytics community? Well, one of the features of using the Google secure search site, is that Google removes the keyword value that was searched for from the referring URL (the q= value). In other words, if you do a search from the Google secure site, the keywords you searched will not be passed along in the referrer information. The referrer string is what your analytics vendor uses to determine what keywords led visitors to your site from Google.
Here is an example of the referrer string in action. I did a search on the standard non-secure Google site for the term “keystone solutions”.
Clicking the first result, we are taken to the Keystone Solutions site. Checking the Omniture debugger, we can see that the value of the keywords we sarched for appear in the referring URL string as the q= value.
Again, I click the first result and arrive at the Keystone Solutions site. Checking the debugger this time gives us a very different referring URL value. Here you can see that the q= parameter that held the value of the searched keywords on the non secure site is now blank. Our searched keywords have been removed.
So what direct effect will this have on our reporting? Well, if you track search keyword volume you will begin to see a decline in the keywords that brought traffic to your site. There is no way to capture that missing keyword value. What I would like to see is in the keywords report some indication that a search was still made, but the visitor did it using the Google secure search page, so I can still have an accurate track of my overall searched keyword volume. What can we do about this?
What I have here is a little chunk of code that will inject the value of “Google Secure Search” to the referring URL keyword value (q=) when the visitor came from the Google secure search site, so I can see how many of the searches that were performed, that led visitors to my site, were done using the secure search.
?1 var kr=document.referrer,kk=s.getQueryParam("q","",kr),ks=s.getQueryParam("esrc","",kr);if(kr.indexOf("www.google.com")&&!kk&&ks=="s"){var ksr=kr.split("q="),kq="q=Google%20Secure%20Search";s.referrer=ksr[0]+kq+ksr[1]};
All the code needs to work is the getQueryParam (which just about everybody should be using). Just place that line in the s_code file near the end of the s_doPlugins section and thats it. For all other search engines and for non-secure Google search, everything will work as it always has, but when you do a search using the Google secure site, then you will get the injected “Google Secure Search” value in the keyword variable.
Here is an example of it working in action:
Wednesday 16 November 2011
How to Use Google Adsense Account for More Than One Site or Blog
1. Log on to your Google Adsense account. There are four tabs at the top of the page. The defaulted one (the one you're on) is "Reports."
2. Click the "Adsense Setup" tab.
3. Choose the type of Adsense ad you'd like to add to your website. Continue through the ad-creating interface as usual.
4. When you reach the page that allows you to add channels, stop. Here, click the "Add New Channel" text link. Name the channel something that you will readily identify as pertaining to this particular site. For instance, if you own abc.com and xyz.com, and this add is for the latter site, name your channel xyz.com.
5. Next time you log in to your account to check your Google Adsense statistics, click on the "Top Channels" text link on the Reports page. This will give you a breakdown of your number of page views, number of clicks, CTR (click through rate), and earnings by channel. This will enable you to determine which site is earning more money for you.
2. Click the "Adsense Setup" tab.
3. Choose the type of Adsense ad you'd like to add to your website. Continue through the ad-creating interface as usual.
4. When you reach the page that allows you to add channels, stop. Here, click the "Add New Channel" text link. Name the channel something that you will readily identify as pertaining to this particular site. For instance, if you own abc.com and xyz.com, and this add is for the latter site, name your channel xyz.com.
5. Next time you log in to your account to check your Google Adsense statistics, click on the "Top Channels" text link on the Reports page. This will give you a breakdown of your number of page views, number of clicks, CTR (click through rate), and earnings by channel. This will enable you to determine which site is earning more money for you.
Tuesday 15 November 2011
Launching ‘Omniture Discover’ without logging on to ‘Site Catalyst’
Do you spend lots of time analyzing data with ‘Omniture Discover’? Are you tired of keying in your username and password every time you login to ‘Discover’?
Launching ‘Discover’ application after you login to your ‘Site Catalyst’ account is time consuming. We all know that if we log in from ‘Site Catalyst’, you are automatically logged in to ‘Discover’. But what if you are not logged on to your ‘Site Catalyst’ account? What if you don’t have the ‘Discover’ URL provided by your ‘Omniture’ admin? Can there be an easier way to access your site data?
Every time the Java files you download are executed it asks for a password to authenticate. Does seeing the below message frustrate you every time you open your ‘Discover’ account?
Here’s the Solution to the problem
1. Select the ‘Discover’ file and Open it with a Notepad or Notepad++.
2. Once you have the file opened in Notepad or Notepad++, scroll down till you see your company name and username. The sample code is shown below.
3. Let’s concentrate on the highlighted argument “token”, this is the key solution to the problem. You need to replace the token argument with password, once you update your password in the source code you can automatically login to ‘Discover’ without keying in your password over and over again.
Here’s the code after the replacement:
4. After these changes are made, save and close the file. Now open the file with Java Web Start Launcher and you are good to go.
So here you are…Happy Analyzing !
Launching ‘Discover’ application after you login to your ‘Site Catalyst’ account is time consuming. We all know that if we log in from ‘Site Catalyst’, you are automatically logged in to ‘Discover’. But what if you are not logged on to your ‘Site Catalyst’ account? What if you don’t have the ‘Discover’ URL provided by your ‘Omniture’ admin? Can there be an easier way to access your site data?
Every time the Java files you download are executed it asks for a password to authenticate. Does seeing the below message frustrate you every time you open your ‘Discover’ account?
Here’s the Solution to the problem
1. Select the ‘Discover’ file and Open it with a Notepad or Notepad++.
2. Once you have the file opened in Notepad or Notepad++, scroll down till you see your company name and username. The sample code is shown below.
3. Let’s concentrate on the highlighted argument “token”, this is the key solution to the problem. You need to replace the token argument with password, once you update your password in the source code you can automatically login to ‘Discover’ without keying in your password over and over again.
Here’s the code after the replacement:
4. After these changes are made, save and close the file. Now open the file with Java Web Start Launcher and you are good to go.
So here you are…Happy Analyzing !
Friday 4 November 2011
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