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I can’t tell you enough how pleased I am about Urchins new On-Demand version 6. I have been playing with web analytic software for over 5 years now and have tried it all. Urchin’s new version 6 on-demand web service is a giant leap foward. The interface is smooth and quick, the reports are comprehensive and easily located, and the data is thourough and concise.

With that being said I would also like to point out that Urchin 6 is not perfect. There have been a few small bumps in the road, most of which seem to stem from an overwhelming amount of new customers and the resulting overloaded servers. I have seen the system take days to catch up on its report calculations and am still unable to get the goals feature to work. It also took 4 days to setup my account. For those of you who run small websites, you may not be able to afford the $199 per month the service costs. However, if you do anymore then a small amount of business on the web, I would highly recommend it, regardless of the few things that could be fixed.

Here are some of the other major features that stand out:

Keyword Analysis: You are able to compare conversion metrics for each keyword (Cost per Click and Organic) you use on Google, Overture, Findwhat and other services. Urchin will also makes suggestions on what keywords you are not currently taking advantage of based on traffic obtained from all sources. There is also a feature to integrate your PPC campaigns from Google into your reporting. This is obviously due to the purchase of Urchin by Google. I have yet to test this feature out but it sounds great.

Site Overlay: Provides Visual representations of customers click paths and conversion metrics just by browsing through your site. This is similar to the popular functionality that Clicktracks provides.

Funnel Optimization: This is an advanced feature that most will not use right away but which could be very powerful. It allows you to set clickpaths and then track where people most likely get sidetracked on the way to one of your defined goals, such as a order confirmation page. If you want to optimized conversions this is a great utility.

A/B Testing: You can test the effectiveness of banner ads, emails, and keywords, through A/B testing.

E-commerce Analytics: Allows you trace transactions to campaigns and keywords, allowing you to identify your most lucrative traffic sources.

Here are some of the other positive comments I have seen around the web:

“ At Search Engine Strategies New York I got to preview the new Urchin 6 website traffic analysis system. We have been happily using Urchin 5 for our sites but the new Urchin 6 has some impressive new features. Now that Urchin 6 has been released and I’ve been able to use it for the past month I’m even more impressed than I was with the preview.” Newfangled.com

“I use Urchin and love it. It’s especially good for e-commerce sites if you activate their Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) and E-Commerce/Revenue Source modules. The basic visitor data is pretty cool, in that it breaks down First Time Uniques and Return Uniques, etc, etc. But the part I love the most is where you can see which search engines and which search terms are bringing you revenue. That one little thing has helped me to better target some terms that I would have never thought of, and they’re search terms that convert very, very well.” Randy from Highrankings.com

Here’s one negative:

“We’re running a trial with Urchin 6 right now. My big issue so far with the program is that it requires a 20K script to be loaded on each page. I don’t like heavy pages - I’m not sure if the trade-off is worth it or not. We’ll see.” Matt B. from Highrankings.com

You can read more about Urchin here: http://www.urchin.com/

Watch a Flash Demo Here: http://www.urchin.com/products/demo/index.html