Urchin 5.5 – Web Analytics Product Review - Reporting Review
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One of the best attributes of Urchin has always been its ease of use. Urchin has always provided easy to read and understand reports and charts. I have seen many Web analytics programs that require a lot of interpretation and explanation to my clients. By having an easy to use and understand interface, the time required to explain reports can be reduced greatly.
As mentioned previously, reports remain restricted and can only be accessed with the use of a user name and password by logging in to the Urchin report module. The first screen that loads is the Traffic/Sessions Graph. This graph gives you a quick overview of the number of sessions over the week's period. Urchin defines a session as follows:
A Session is a defined quantity of visitor interaction with a website.
The definition will vary depending on how visitors are tracked. Some common visitor tracking methods and corresponding session definitions are: IP-based Visitor Tracking, IP+User Agent Visitor Tracking and Unique Visitor Tracking (cookie-based, such as Urchin's UTM). For a more detailed explanation please visit: http://help.urchin.com/doc/glossary.cgi#S
The data range can be changed at the bottom left corner of any report. You also have the option to click on the bars to make them "explode" or to change the bar graph to a line graph. They use a technology developed by Adobe named SVG, which helps make these reports more interactive and attractive. In addition, every report view gives you these SVG options and export options, which include export to text, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.
The next screen shot displays a similar graph except the information that is graphed is the "Pageviews" for that week. Urchin defines a Pageview as follows:
"A page is defined as any file or content delivered by a web server that would generally be considered a web document. This includes HTML pages (.html, .htm, .shtml), script-generated pages (.cgi, .asp, .cfm, etc.), and plain-text pages. It also includes sound files (.wav, .aiff, etc.), video files (.mov, etc.), and other non-document files. Only image files (.jpeg, .gif, .png), JavaScript (.js) and style sheets (.css) are excluded from this definition. Each time a file defined as a page is served, a pageview is registered by Urchin."
As you can see below, I have selected the line graph mode for this pageview graph.
Urchin allows you to view not only the sessions and pageview reports they also give you the ability to view a hits graph, bytes graph and even a load balancer graph. In addition, Urchin gives you a data summary of all of these graphs on one page at the "Summary" link. That completes the traffic analysis portion of the Urchin Web analytics suite.
Next: Visitors and Sessions Reporting >>
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