Google Analytics has launched an interesting new section called Benchmarking and I have been playing with it our some of our clients sites today. Benchmarking compares how one website’s statistics compare against aggregate data from sites of similar sizes within an industry Industry category. The statistics compared are the number of visits, Page Views, Pages per Visit, Bounce Rates, Average Time on Site and New Visits data - it’s all pretty cool.

Nit picking you would say that the negative points would be that the comparative statistics are only against other websites that have chosen to enable data sharing in Google Analytics for this purpose - so those sites that don’t regularly check their analytics or are not proactive, or use other systems, will not be shown. The other potential problem being which industry category your site is compared to. Although you can chose your industry category from a pretty extensive list the categories are still quite broad for our clients, for example, two of the sites I looked at were both hostel sites and they fit into the “hotels and accommodations” category, which seems a bit broad.

One of the nice uses I see however will be to provide a sanctity check when you think things might be really good or vice versa. For example, if you have a month where you are experiencing much less visits you can at least draw some comparisons from the rest of the broader industry according to the Google Benchmarking tool to see how the rest of the industry is fairing.

Below is a screen shot of how the Benchmarking tool looks:

This problem is not new to us at Xebidy, but a recent article in the Great New Zealand Travel Directory newsletter highlighted it, so I thought it high time we comment. The newsletter was commenting on the recent upgrade by many hosting companies from analytics package Urchin 4 to Urchin 5 - which apparently due to a change in measurement methods is now displaying less site traffic then before for the same sites.

This particular article recommends Google analytics and we could not agree more. In fact, I would go as far to say that the free server packages that most hosting companies provide are bad news for the unweary. I have a prime case in point. One of our clients was using a package called Deep Matrix and was of the understanding they were enjoying visitor numbers of 25 - 30,000 per month. In fact, they went as far as to commit a large investment in redesigning their site based on their belief.

The new site was launched and everyone was happy. That is, until the first months stats were reviewed by the marketing department. Low and behold, visitor numbers in the newly installed Google Analytics packages were 50% of what they previously were on the Deep matrix server log analysis. A quick review of Deep Matrix revealed the route of the problem - “This report includes visits from automated users such as search engine robots”; and Google analytics don’t. There is no easy way to explain that to the board!

The newsletter in fact says:

“if you load Google analytics to your site you will certainly see a drop in traffic compared to your other stats packages. However, it is, widely assumed (but probably not proven) that Google analytics is not subject to the same stats server issues that hosting companies seem to have. It may therefore be a more reliable and independent method of measuring monthly trends”.

I think what is being referred to here is server uptime, and most importantly the way Google analytics picks up the incoming traffic and recognises is an either search engine or some other automated bots (such as email harvesters etc). Google analytics sit on the website or user side and register traffic as it hits your site via some code inserted by your developer into your site. Server stats packages on the other hand take the raw data from your server logo and interpret this data into something meaningful. The difference is in how these packages recognise this traffic and categorise it, or not as may be the case (Deep Matrix simply treating the traffic the same whether it be for a visitor, a search engine bot or some other automated service).

So how much of this non-qualified traffic is there? Lots! When we looked closely at the client I referred to before they experienced over 20,000 visits in one month from search engines and the like. Add this to the Google reported visitors of nearly 10,000 and they were back on track (albeit very disappointedly) with their stats.

Is there a lesson here, are stats packages useful at all then, especially if they are not accurate? Absolutely! Analytics packages are essential for trend analysis. You should be continually analysing your site, what happens if I change this content or this heading, what happens after this course of optimistation. Google moreover allows you to set goals and track your users from source to your desired outcome - such as making a purchase. But, be aware of the limitations of your stats pack, get professional advice and setup a programme of monitoring and reporting that is meaningful to your business. And finally, be aware that poorly analysed stats could lead to some very bad news in the future!

It’s official, as of 18th July Google Analytics has discontinued their Version 1 interface for the new look and feel. While there are many many analytics programmes on the market none delivers the quality and depth of information as Google Analytics for the price - which by the way is free!

The new interface is slick and so easy to use. Take the world map for example, the graphical presentation of where your website visitors are coming from is extremely intuitive; clicking on a country generates a close-up view with breakdown of visitors by region and/or city. Or the site overlay tool, which provides a real view of your web page with all the links from that page and a graphical and textual view of the number of clicks and the percentage of clicks that link makes up of clicks from that page. The overlaying of information onto your web page makes understanding the web statistics almost child’s’ play.

But perhaps the most valuable feature is the ‘Goals & Funnels’. Goals allow you to set up certain pages such as a booking confirmation or an enquiry page as a goal for users of your website. Funnels track the specific click path a user takes to reach your defined website goals. Goals and funnels can have specific monetary values attached, meaning you can track your websites financial performance as well - and we all know I have continually harped on about the importance of real measurable objectives in your website strategy.

So, thanks to Google for another great indispensable tool - the new interface is fantastic, and the functionality unbeatable - even for that price!