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Google The Internet Businesses

Google Buys Urchin Web Analytics 112

Posted by Zonk from the another-feather-in-their-cap dept.
sho222 writes "Business Week, BMP Today, and others are reporting that Google agreed late Monday to aqcuire Urchin Software Corporation. Urchin boasts that their web analytics and marketing intelligence software is used by millions of sites worldwide and 20% of Fortune 500 companies. Google's VP of Product Management explains that, "This technology will be a valuable addition to Google's suite of advertising and publishing products." The deal is set to close in late April."
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Google Buys Urchin Web Analytics More

Google Buys Urchin Web Analytics

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  • I found this image [urchin.com] on the website here [urchin.com].

    Google had a decent stake for a while ;-)

  • This is pretty exciting. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @04:46PM (#12081003) Homepage Journal
    In addition to being the penultimate search engine, Google is becoming quite feature-rich as well. It's pretty interesting to realize the subtle way in which they've risen to the top by simply providing what people want -- no more, no less -- in this age when we are saturated with online advertising on every other Internet site.

    So cheers to Google.

  • ...but capitalism makes excellent ones.

    This is an excellent match. It makes perfect sense that a web advertising company would buy a web analytics company, and I can't wait to see the results show up in AdSense.

  • i hope (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @04:47PM (#12081023) Homepage
    I just hope that Google stays consumer and user-oriented instead of investing more time in arcane fields like traffic analysis, or the route IBM has gone, "e-solutions." This seems like a step in the wrong direction; it's not like Google is seeking to be recognised among high-profile companies....Google, isn't it time to start writing end-user software?

    • Re:i hope (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mboos ( 700155 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:05PM (#12081334) Homepage

      I was actually taken back by how much Google employees will stand by the principle of meeting end-user needs.

      At a information session for Google at our university, they showed us how they could make graphs of frequency statistics for certain search words. Sort of the stuff you'd find in the Google Zeitgeist [google.com] but as a graph for a particular word over time. For example, they showed a graph for a search on 'Summer Olympics' which spiked during the most recent Winter Olympics.

      I asked them if Google had ever considered selling some of these statistics to businesses trying to analyze trends, just in bulk numbers (no privacy violations etc). I would figure it would be easy for them to implement, and another source of revenue. The presenters (who were actual engineers for Google, not just some PR folks) frowned upon that idea because they claimed that "it would not directly benefit end users." I asked how it could harm the user, but they insisted that if the user were not to benefit from it, they were not going to consider doing it.

      • I asked them if Google had ever considered selling some of these statistics to businesses trying to analyze trends, just in bulk numbers (no privacy violations etc). I would figure it would be easy for them to implement, and another source of revenue. The presenters (who were actual engineers for Google, not just some PR folks) frowned upon that idea because they claimed that "it would not directly benefit end users."

        Sure the engineers say they wouldn't do it and the PR folks probably would say they would


      • Assuming ads are inevitable, users do, in fact, benefit from targeted ads and content.
        • * Re:i hope (Score:1)
          by cpeterso (19082) Alter Relationship on Tuesday March 29, @05:53PM (#12082840)
          (http://www.lawfulneutral.com/)

          Assuming ads are inevitable, users do, in fact, benefit from targeted ads and content.*

          well, then another money revenue source would benefit the user as well. another money revenue source that would not force adverts on to the user even!

    • After going public, do people really expect google to be the same? To continue looking good on wallstreet, they'll have to sell anything. Even becoming more evil, and playing dirty.

    • The acquisition of Urchin doesn't necessarily mean that Google is moving into the traffic analysis market in a big way. My guess is that this will simply be used for improved reporting to adwords and adsense users.
    • Never forget, we are not Google's customers.

      We are their product.

      We buy nothing from Google, the advertizers pay Google, not us.

      We are merely eyeballs to sell.

  • I do love google (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CSMastermind ( 847625 )
    However I worry about their rapid asscention into a computer gaint. With this purchase they add to their already impressive profile as an inovative technology leader. I'm sure MS looked much the same way back in the early 90s. I've been using yahoo more lately but their interface is far too confused to make me want to use them regualarly. Now repersents a time when google open to an attack from a well directed company who has the software to compete with them in the scearch market. Lets hope that googl

  • Urchin Rocks (Score:4, Funny)

    by filmmaker ( 850359 ) * on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @04:49PM (#12081059) Homepage
    I've been singing the high praises of Urchin 6 (this is the promo piece) [urchin.com] since I first saw it. Urchin 5 in and of itself is pretty addictive. The ROI tracking stuff and some of the other analyses that 6 provides will do wonders in terms of consolidating report generation and I suppose now AdSense and AdWords and things like that will be part of the package as well.

    I for one, welcome our web analytics search data ROI overlords.

    • Re:Urchin Rocks (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ShinGouki ( 12500 )
      urchin does, in fact, rock.
      i've deployed it on a bunch of systems with varying needs from 14gig logfiles to 10,000+ website environments and it has handled everything i've thrown at it, done it faster and better than any other stats software i've ever seen.

      now that it's been bought by google i'm assuming it will get even better since urchin's cutting-edge approach to statistical analysis matches perfectly with google's unique approach to coding

    • Re:Urchin Rocks (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      One thing it didn't have (last time I evaluated these tools) was a way of distributing credit among multiple advertising programs.

      For example, one thing we noticed is that paid search engine terms did *MUCH* better in cities where we also did radio advertising.

      As far as I can tell, when counting ROI for search engine terms, Urchin would count the entire purchase to even though most of the money that contributed to those purchases may have been spent in radio.

      It's a nice simple tool; but except for the

    • Our overlords are urchins??
    • I agree. I have used a lot of analytical packages and I have found that Urchin is far and away the best. However, the reason Urchin was not (until now) as well-known as it should be is due to its cost, which is a little prohibitive for the average mom & pop website business. Indeed, my own experience of using Urchin comes largely from using version 4, which is bundled as part of hosting with some vendors. I hope Google reduces the cost. I wouldn't be surprised either to see Google introducing a soup

  • Marketing Analysis Bot says: (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rac3r5 ( 804639 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @04:51PM (#12081101)
    I know what you bought last summer. :p
  • I feel like a should be scared of how much influence and power Google is gaining - any corporation that size just HAS to evil, doesn't it? But they keep impressing me! Like Google Maps is 100x better than mapquest. They just keep rolling out great features, so I can't bring myself to fear them.
    • Google maps is better in appearance and speed, but thats about it...it is still well beta...it cant find things that are even shown on its map, its so frustrating. For example look for Solomons Island, MD ...it thinks i'm looking for a doctor, instead of assuming the state of maryland first...and even when i type out maryland it cant find it, despite it being shown on the map. Or Dane County Airport in wisconsin...or Anderson St which is shown on their airport...very frustrating. Though neat looking. Pl
      • I think Google Maps looks good over all, I mean cool thing is it's flash, so it's way much eaiser to scroll somewhere (like around my town) without hearing the click and image loading. What I can't wait for is for them start adding overhead images taken by Keyhole. Google News does seem unorganized. But mind you it's like Google, Google Image Search and Froogle. It shows a quick summary then you click the link and it's hosted on the site the story is from, unlike with Yahoo! News where it's acutally hosted
    • I'm guessing they're divertifying their markets incase microsoft does end up with the dominant search engine (it shouldn't happen, but it could - ive been seeing a lot of adverts on TV for msn search recently (UK) and it'l be the default search engine in IE7.
    • any corporation that size just HAS to evil, doesn't it?

      Sure, if you have the brain capacity of a 4 year old (or the current US President) and need to break down everything in the world into "Good" and "Evil". First off, there is no such thing as "Evil". It's something for fairy tales. Secondly, a corporation isn't an entity in and of itself. They may have a culture, but a corporation is nothing but a group of people. Thirdly, corporations come in all different shapes and sizes. Most non-business pe
  • This makes perfect sense for Google. I would expect the Urchin software to begin "recommending" the use of a larger adsense/adwords campaign very soon, and that means a bigger war chest for Google.

  • deWORSification (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mrs. Grundy ( 680212 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @04:56PM (#12081178) Homepage
    Peter Lynch, in his pop-investor books, talks about young companies who suddenly come into a lot of cash through an IPO and stop innovating and try to grow via purchases of ever-expanding diversity. He calls this deworsification when companies grow out of their expertise. This isn't always bad--a company needs to grow after all--but it can often be a sign of a company that isn't going to be innovating the same way. Now, it's not like google just went out and bought a fast-food franchise (although 'google burger' has a nice ring to it), but If I was a stock holder in google I might be looking closely at this strategy and start looking around for another innovative start-up whose valuation isn't so high and who is concentrating on a smaller array of products.
    • ...of course with GoogleMaps, GoogleSuggest, GMail, GoogleGroups and a host of other innovative best of class apps...I don't see Google sitting around picking their noses.

      Google is creating kick ass products internally and buying best of breed when they see a good fit/missing expertise. Nothing wrong at all with this.

  • Will they do something about the bloat? (Score:3, Informative)

    by nathan s ( 719490 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:03PM (#12081302) Homepage
    I run a few websites on a managed dedicated server and one of the tools that we're offered is Urchin (version 5, I believe). I generally use awstats instead. Urchin is painfully slow to use and has the most horrible date-range system for reports that I've ever had the misfortune to use.

    I wonder if Google will clean it up and make it run as smoothly as the main Google search page. It might not make me wince so much to use.

    Just my opinion, of course. Your mileage may well vary.

    • Re:Will they do something about the bloat? (Score:4, Informative)

      by gb506 ( 738638 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:23PM (#12081628) Homepage
      My mileage does indeed vary. I bought Urchin 5.x.x last week after doing a competitive analysis of the top contenders in the web analytics market. Urchin beat them all hands down in ver. 5 form, and version 6, which is in operation now as an on-demand service, will be out in software form in the next couple of months. The page overlay functions and goal tracking in 6 are the bee's knees and I cannot wait to use it.

      And you talk about bloat? WebTrends 7 is a 245MB download. The entire Urchin install directory (for OSX) is 15MB decompressed. Hardly bloatware.

  • Very smart move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:04PM (#12081318)
    You can deride it as "big brother" etc by the fact is, hyper-tracking of web activity is going to be very very big business.

    Of course there is only so much you can pull out of data, and many firms will get caught up in "analysis paralysis" and over-reliance on back-looking stats instead of risk taking on new ideas, but that realization will only come after billions have been spent chasing the dream of apparently being able to mind-read consumers.

    This is the best web acquisition this year.

    • I agree. I've been concerned to such analysis in the past. The only interesting use I can see of such analysis is detecting any loops that the users might routinely be getting 'caught' in while clicking through the site. But that can easily be avoided if enough attention is paid to designing the site in the first place; making it easier to grasp and making the page tree only a few levels deep.
      Apart from that, it's just a toy to amuse the management types who like to keep spitting out graphs and numbers th

  • well (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 )
    I know some webmasters have expressed their discomfort with Google's conversion tracking because Google gets a rough estimate on the ROI from Adwords campaigns. I wonder if they will have access to the data Urchin collects. If so this could put Google in control of some extraordinarly valuable data.
  • This can only make services like Adwords better. YES! NO MORE PSAs!

  • another takeover (Score:3, Funny)

    by Phy6 ( 871750 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @05:30PM (#12081703)
    Your uniqueness will be added to our own.
  • At least it was two years ago when I last used it. The numbers aren't reliable and doesn't have a good tool for building custom reports.

    IMO, Nielson/Netratings is much better. It's the old RedSheriff system and is far better than any other reporting tool I've seen.

  • Google vs. Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)

    by IdJit ( 78604 )
    I can remember not so long ago when most of the X-[acquires/buys/takes over]-Y stories were almost always about Microsoft grabbing up some little company.

    These days, however, it seems like Google's on the takeover shopping spree.
  • Google is becoming too big in too short of a period of time. Sure, Microsoft probably exploded just as fast, but look at where it's gotten them: They monopolize the OS and productivity market, using claims that open source is insecure and vulnerable to attacks and source poisoning.

    Yes, there will always be a smaller, less popular alternative, but that doesn't do a whole lot for the person that sees advertisements for Google all over the place. Telling people to just use Google is very analogous to Windows

  • Bad news for Search Optimizers? (Score:3, Informative)

    by miller60 ( 554835 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @06:09PM (#12082259) Homepage
    Google seems likely to make its Urchin-based tools available for free to its AdSense publishers and AdWords clients. Google's interest is in making ads more relevant, which in turn allows to to charge more for ads. That won't be happy news for search engine optimization (SEO) specialists [blogworks.net] who help site owners improve their visibility. If Google is offering user-friendly traffic analysis tools, are site owners likely to pay SEO firms? Some will, but this will make do-it-yourself search optimization much easier.
  • It looks like google's hosting rumors are back on after this acquisition.

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