Google Analytics Unveils New Features, Urchin Software

Google announced new features to its Google Analytics™ web service such as site search reporting and event tracking, and an updated version of Urchin™ software. This enhanced feature set makes essential Web 2.0 information more accessible and comprehensible, and enables Google Analytics users to better understand their users and to act on reporting information in more sophisticated ways.

Users can enable site search to identify keywords, categories, products, and trends across time and user segments, thereby helping them measure the effectiveness of their websites and their marketing dollars. Site search aggregates data about how searches affect site usage, e-commerce activity, and conversion rates, by tracking internal search patterns. This best-of-breed feature will soon be available worldwide, and it works with Google Custom Search™, GSA, Google Mini™ and many other non-Google site search products.

With Web 2.0 features also spreading on the Internet, measuring their success is increasingly valuable. Event tracking, which launches in a limited beta at the eMetrics Summit, enables Google Analytics users to measure visitor engagement with a site's interactive elements, such as Ajax, Javascript, Flash movies, page gadgets, downloads, and other multimedia Web 2.0 experiences. Google Analytics users who are attending the eMetrics Summit can sign up for event tracking at the Google Analytics booth, and users should note that when they add event tracking, they must update their page tags from "urchin.js" to "ga.js".

For those who prefer a software version of web analytics, Google Analytics is introducing Urchin Software in limited beta worldwide. Urchin Software is an update to Urchin 5 software, and a free 90-day trial of the beta version of Urchin Software can be requested from an authorized reseller:
http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html.

Urchin Software will be available for a discounted price to users of Urchin 5, and will include many improvements including tools to assist in migrating configurations and data from previous versions of Urchin. Once the new software is out of beta, it can be purchased through an authorized reseller, who often offers comprehensive support and consultation services as well.

Users all over the world rely on Google Analytics to optimize their businesses and understand their customers' needs. To better serve them, Google Analytics has added six new languages, bringing the total number of supported languages to 25. The new languages are Czech, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), Thai, Filipino, and Indonesian.