why is it called urchin? i still have no clue

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"; the more things change, the more they remain the same. With Urchin 7's recent release, I am reminded of just how true that is.

One year, one month, and one day ago Rami and I released a post detailing the difference between Urchin and Google Analytics. At that time Urchin was in version 6, without many of the updates that had made Google Analytics so powerful. With Urchin 7 out now, many of these features are available to Urchin users, including the ever in-demand Advanced Segments. Yet, as Urchin has caught up on some levels, Google Analytics has advanced as well, adding Insights and more. 

So what is the difference between Google Analytics and Urchin in 2010? A lot, and much of the same.

What is new?

With the release of Urchin 7, there are several new features that bring Urchin closer to parity with Google Analytics. Two exciting new additions to the Urchin suite are:

Advanced Segments

This one took a while, didn't it? Now you can slice and dice your data so as to produce greater and more meaningful reports. 

Event Tracking

This is another "why wasn't this here before?" feature. You can now analyze arbitrary "non-pageview" events, such as a clicks. This allows you to record user interaction with website elements such as flash, embedded video, and AJAX pages.

Updated API

The new Urchin data export API extends the power of the data that you can pull from it. You can not specify up to 50 filters of each time per single query!

A while host of performance related features

Performance has been a major component of this update. Included is support for 64bit CPUs, parallel processing, and more.

Comparing Urchin and Google Analytics?

Free Vs. Ten grand

The biggest change in Urchin 7, for many prospective users, is how much Urchin now costs. Urchin 6 was $2,995 with a hearty discount for Urchin 5 owners, depending on what they paid. Urchin 7 is $9995, with a $2995 discount for owners of Urchin 6, and discounts for Urchin 5 owners dependent on what you spent originally. You can buy or upgrade through an Urchin Certified Partner such as us.

Google Analytics is, of course, free and available directly from Google. 

More report Profiles

While Google Analytics only allows 100 report profiles, Urchin provides 1000, as well as (now) unlimited log sources. These can be extended by purchasing additional license.

Hosting on your servers Vs. Hosting on Google's

Google Analytics collects data using the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) which is a snippet of javascript code that must be installed on every page you want to track. Urchin, while still using a similar (and if configured correctly, the same) tracking code, includes a log file analyzer, which will allow you to view the specific page requests each individual visitor has made on your site. 

Google Analytics's system takes all of your data, passes it to Google, where it's put together and then fed out for reports. This data is all stored on Google's servers, and not kept in its raw state.  

This can create problems for some companies. For instance, governmental institutions, universities and banks are typically required to store their web analytics data on their own servers behind a firewall. Many of our clients are working with sensitive data, some times the sensitive data of their own clients, and as such they can not trust their analytics data to Google without legal hurdles.

Urchin is entirely self hosted, storing data entirely within your systems, so there is no legal problems for institutions nor more private companies.

That all said, if your company isn't mandated to protect its data behind firewalls, then this shouldn't be a deciding factor for choosing Urchin over Google Analytics. If you have concerns over how Google stores and uses your analytics data with Google Analytics, take a look through their privacy policy. Google Analytics is very good about keeping your information private.

Per-Visitor Activity, and Personally Identifiable Information

Personally identifiable information creates a problem for Google Analytics. Since all of the data is being stored in aggregate on Google's servers, any potentially illegal information that you submit could affect Google, and as such Google just blanket-bans personally identifiable information.

Of course, since Urchin resides on your own servers and implements a log file analyzer, not only can you feed personally identifiable information into it, but it can use it's log file analyzer to allow for visitor level analysis of your data.

Data Reprocessing and Warehousing

Since Urchin uses log files (as well as JavaScript) for data collection, it is possible to reprocess older data about your website; data that would be lost to Google Analytics. This also allows you to dig up old log files and reprocess them according to any new metrics you've started using. For example: if you just started tracking a particular form submission as a conversion, by reprocessing historical log files you can see how many visitors converted through that form even through you weren't tracking it previously.

Further, since you are in control of your own data, there is no risk of Google deleting your website analytics data after 18 months. Though this has yet to happen with Google Analytics, Google does reserve the right to prune data from the Google Analytics servers in order to free up space and bandwidth. And if you wanted to follow three year trends in your site, finding out that you only have a year and a half of info left on your account would be a serious bummer.

Reports on spider activity

Another thing that Urchin can do that Google Analytics can't is track web crawler (spider) activity on your website. Because these spiders don't execute javascript when they're on your site, Google Analytics has no way of knowing they're there. Urchin, on the other hand, is logging each page request on your site and can pull up the log data for each spider visit. 

Non-Page related information

Urchin, due to its log file analysis capabilities, can also provide information on non-page related files, such as images, file downloads, and server errors. This can allow you to track non-page related activity without the use of fancy redirects or javascript hacks.

Although our "Google Analytics error page tracking" works pretty well...

Richer Custom Reports

With more data available, richer custom reporting solutions are needed. Urchin provides even more customizable reports, allowing you to gather even more insights from your analytics data.

Conclusions

Google Analytics is still Google's flagship analytics product, despite all of Urchin's updates.  It still features several functionalities that Urchin isn't going to have for some time, including the Insights report, which summarizes changes in visitor behavior, and in-page analytics. 

While the new features are great, and the lack of either is not a game changer, Google Analytics is always going to get all the newest updates and features, while Urchin will always lag behind. Google's enterprise model seems to be based on beta testing using free apps: the free app introduces a feature, they iron it out for ages, then eventually release it fully supported in their paid apps. This goes for Google Docs, Gmail, Calendar, and yes, Analytics. 

No matter how much Urchin changes, it will always be the same: following on the coat tails of Google Analytics.

Finally, and as we suggest (to companies that aren't mandated to protect informational privacy, of course), if you're running Urchin Software by Google you can run Google Analytics beside it, using their combined data to give you the best of both worlds.

For an even larger comparison of differences between the two you may find this comparison chart useful.