Vital Web Stats—And More

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How many hits are we getting? Which are the most popular pages on our site? Where are visitors coming from?

These are the most common questions Web site administrators have on a daily basis about their site. But when it comes down to improving the site for visitors, knowing how your site is really used and getting rid of waste in the site, a lot more information is necessary.

There are many technologies for analyzing and reporting on the massive amount of information generated by busy Web sites. These range from traditional log file analyzers to network sniffers to agents installed on the Web server to services that receive information whenever a page is accessed.

Most small sites can get by with simple tools that answer only the most basic questions. However, large content and e-commerce sites, as well as those in large enterprises, require applications that can provide detailed, flexible analysis capabilities.

For this review, eWeek Labs looked at two products that provide high-level analysis and reporting but take very different approaches.

Representing traditional log file analyzers is the venerable and popular WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0 from NetIQ Corp., a powerful and flexible system that is a far cry from its early days as a simple Windows-only application. For service providers, we looked at SiteCatalyst 8.0 from Omniture Inc. (formerly MyComputer Inc.). SiteCatalyst, which works by receiving information from scripts embedded in pages on a Web site, provides a wide and customizable set of reporting and analysis tools that give sites feedback in real time.

Both products and approaches to Web site analysis have distinct benefits and disadvantages that companies will have to weigh when evaluating them. For some, the convenience and real-time reports of the service offering will outweigh the lack of local control and potential security problems. Others will prefer the centralized control and flexibility of the log analyzer despite its less-than-real-time reporting and the hassle of managing very large log files.

WebTrends Reporting Center 5

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WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0

For many Web site administrators, WebTrends was probably the first log analysis tool they used, a dedicated system generating reports overnight that had to be e-mailed to anyone else who needed to see them. At the time, the main evaluation criteria was how long it took to generate a report from giant log files. If you could start it in the morning and see results before you left in the evening, it was pretty good. Now, most tools can process a gigabyte log file in less than an hour.

To test WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0, we used a variety of log files, both large and small, from Web servers performing different tasks, a main content site, a commerce site and a streaming media site.

We found WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0 a big improvement over the previous version, 4.0. We especially liked the new Dashboard feature, which allowed us to view all data in an interactive, customizable browser-based interface similar to those found in major corporate portals.

Customizing the WebTrends Desktop was a simple task using the intuitive template editor. We could easily define how the Desktop would appear, create custom Dashboards and choose which reports would be available to users. We could also easily build custom reports and could compare reports from different periods to see trends and differences over time.

A new scenario analysis feature made it possible for us to define common user paths through a site and then do detailed analysis on the visitor experience through these paths. While we found this feature very useful, the standard creation process for it was less than user-friendly, forcing us to enter each step manually in a form interface.

However, another new feature made this and many other process configuration tasks much simpler by making it possible to record actions done within the site using a browser. The WebTrends Map feature installed a plug-in that tied in to our main Reporting Center server and allowed us to record paths as we browsed within our site. However, like the rest of the WebTrends browser interface, this feature worked only in Internet Explorer, not in Netscape 6+ or Mozilla.

Improved access control features enabled us to create users with varying rights within the system, providing good options between administrators and basic users. For example, we could give a user the option to configure filters but not to configure Desktop templates.

Also new in this version are custom data conduits that make it possible to generate meaningful reports from sites running on content management systems or using dynamic scripting languages. In the case of a content management system that generates long, meaningless URLs, the reports could instead show information based on logical sections or groupings. The product includes conduits for several content management systems and for major scripting languages such as Active Server Pages, Cold Fusion, JavaServer Pages and PHP.

WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0, which shipped in June, is available in a $3,500 eBusiness Edition (which is less customizable) and in a $10,500 Enterprise Edition, the version we tested. NetIQ also offers a number of other Web site analysis products, including WebTrends Live, a script-based service that competes directly with Omnitures SiteCatalyst.

Sitecatalyst 8

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Sitecatalyst 8.0

Unlike many other service providers, companies that supply Web analytic services have done fairly well, with some of the biggest and most active sites using services to handle their reporting and analyses. And why not?

Services such as Omnitures SiteCatalyst provide businesses with timely, flexible analyses and reports, saving businesses from investing in, updating and managing software; dealing with giant log files; and dedicating resources to data crunching. Of course, companies also have to be comfortable with having some of their most vital business information outside their internal network.

Like similar services such as WebTrends Live and WebSideStory Inc.s HitBox, SiteCatalyst works through scripts embedded on Web site pages. These scripts send information to the service provider whenever a page is accessed. Users can then access an analysis and reporting interface through their browser to get real-time reports on site activity.

We tested SiteCatalyst by installing the scripts on public sites controlled in the Labs. We also accessed a large site provided by Omniture to see additional reporting options and reports over time.

The embedded JavaScript for SiteCatalyst is actually 47 lines of code, which we found somewhat long. Still, lots of information is handled through this code: We could customize various settings, making it possible to handle and analyze detailed site properties and e-commerce activities.

The code can be manually inserted into each page or deployed globally across the site through templates, in a standard header or through a content management system. In addition to the embedded code, we had to place a small JavaScript file in a publicly accessible directory on our Web server. (In our case, we placed the file in the CGI-BIN directory.)

Once we had installed the code, we were able to immediately log in to our SiteCatalyst interface and view activity on our site. The main interface for SiteCatalyst is protected through a Secure Sockets Layer connection, which should be secure enough for most businesses. Still, additional security options such as virtual private network access or secure token log-ins would be useful.

The SiteCatalyst interface, which worked well in IE and Mozilla, makes excellent use of HTML and Flash to provide a rich, highly interactive reporting and analysis environment. We were able to choose from a wide variety of reports and could easily create custom reports using the report wizard. Reports can be downloaded in formats such as Microsoft Corp.s Word or Excel, PDF, or HTML and can be exported as text for importing into other reporting and analysis tools.

A new feature in SiteCatalyst 8.0 is Optimum Path. With this technology, SiteCatalyst now has some of the best path analysis capabilities weve seen. From the path reports in SiteCatalyst, we could access detailed, graphical representations of how visitors are using and moving through a site.

Also new in this version was the option to view almost any report in a trended view, rather than in the standard ranked view. In the trended view, we could view line graphs showing how content performed over a specific period of time.

One potential drawback to services that use embedded scripts to track site usage is that they can track only content that is in or linked to a Web page. If visitors are downloading media or other files directly, either through old external links or by guessing, tools such as SiteCatalyst will not show this, although they would be listed in standard log analysis tools.

Finally, while Web analysis services such as SiteCatalyst have done well compared with most other application service providers, they do have one thing in common with their service brethren: massive overpricing. Prices for SiteCatalyst are based on the number of page views and start at around $15,000 per year, with most customers paying between $100,000 and $250,000 per year.

East Coast Technical Director Jim Rapoza can be reached at [email protected].

Executive Summary

: WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0″>

Executive Summary: WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0

An excellent example of a log-based Web analysis application, WebTrends Reporting Center 5.0s improved interface and customization options make it easy for site administrators to dig deep into the data generated by their Web site.

COST ANALYSIS

At $10,500 for the Enterprise Edition, WebTrends Reporting Center costs no more—and, in some cases, much less—than competing enterprise solutions. Still, businesses should evaluate to make sure that their site really requires a high-level enterprise Web analysis application before discounting less expensive systems.

(+) Intuitive, interactive portallike Desktop and Dashboard interface; highly customizable; can record path analysis information through a browser.

(-) Client works only with Internet Explorer; not real-time results.

EVALUATION SHORT LIST

• Accrue Software Inc.s AccrueG2
• CustomerCentric Solutions (a division of SPSS Inc.) NetGenesis
• Sane Solutions LLCs NetTracker
• www.webtrends.com

Executive Summary

: Sitecatalyst 8.0″>

Executive Summary: SiteCatalyst 8.0

For companies that want detailed information about their Web site activity right now, Omnitures SiteCatalyst provides flexible, powerful analysis tools that give clients all the information they need about how visitors are using their site.

COST ANALYSIS

Like most other service providers, SiteCatalyst is very costly, with most sites probably paying more than $100,000 per year. Although these services are powerful, this is well out of the range of many companies.

(+) Excellent visitor site path analysis; reports can be viewed over time; real-time analysis.

(-) Very expensive; code must be inserted in every page on-site; may miss some file downloads.

EVALUATION SHORT LIST

• WebSideStorys Hitbox
• NetIQs WebTrends Live
• www.omniture.com