New to WebTrends- Where's Google? MSN?

[Eljaybe]

I just had WebTrends added to my hosting service for my website. I thought this would be a good tracking software, but there seems to be missing information.
The search engine section does not show Google or MSN and these are 2 of our main sources of traffic. Anyway, it just shows Yahoo and now Lycos.
Also, how do they figure most popular keywords used? Usually you see the whole keyword phrase in this type of software, but WebTrends only shows single keywords, not keyword phrases. I need to see keyword phrases, single words don't help me much.

[irishaff]

Hi,

Im not sure what you are using but im guessing its some kind of free tracking software?

If this is the case my experience with these freebies , is that they are never much good.

Id suggest having a look at some paid services . I use webstat at webstat.com .. you can try it for a few weeks free.

Its Well priced and featured with good support if you need it.., only drawback is that right now it does not keep historical visitor ips.. so you cant see repeat visitor over a number of days. But it does keep all the SE referrall data so you can see what pages are working for you.

You can also track a users movement through the website ...this is good as a 3 second visit to a page implies that the browser wasnt all that interested in what the page had to offer. This allows you to tweak the page from a sales point of view.

webstat costs ten bucks a month , but its been well worth it for me..

David

[Eljaybe]

Thanks for the info. The WebTrends version I am using is free with hosting, so I'm probably missing out on some good features. I will probably be looking into some sort of paid service, like webstat that will give me better stats.
Ten dollars a month sounds like a good deal! Thanks again.

[Receptional]

The more you pay, the more you get - but Webtrends SHOULD give you good referral data. If it isn't, then it is becauise they have an out of date text file on their version, which is used to identifty the search engines.... possibly they have a very old version of Webtrends altogether.

Webtrends is one of the market leaders, so try to get it to work for you before abandoning it for a $10 a month solution. I am not saying DON'T abandon it, (because I did) but just make sure you replace it with something better - not equally unhelpful.

[Eljaybe]

I was under the impression that WebTrends was a great tracking software, but I was a little disappointed when I started using it b/c of the missing information. You're probably right, it's probably an older version. I can find out from my hosting company to make sure. I guess I can't complain too much, since it's free.

[panic]

I'm guessing that WebTrends isn't parsing referring Google and MSN query strings correctly... maybe G recently changed the way it passes back keywords since WebTrends last updated their software.

My suggestion : it wouldn't hurt to setup your own tracking :D

I think effective tracking is something that should be customized from site to site. What might be good for one site might not be of any use to another site, etc.

-p