Switching from Urchin to Google Analytics

[jsyd]

To whom it may concern,

Since Urchin is being discontinued and licenses only work on the
server and directory that the license is configured for. The
recommendation is to switch to Google Analytics. However, the reason
we choose Urchin over Google Analytics is the software is hosted and
we wouldn't have to send any data to a third party (Google). I have
concerns around PCI security when using Google Analytics and have not
been able to find any reliable information.

I have asked the question on the Google Analytics form but received no
response:
https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/analytics/feedbacksuggestions/ajPB_NydAu0

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Gabriel Pugliese]

AFAIK, Urchin has been discontinued one time before and people asked for it to come back for the same reason you have.

I think this time it will be more difficult to make them change plans, except if a lot of people ask for it, something I don't see happening in the future.

PS: This is my point of view.

-- Gabriel Pugliese

+55 11 9374-2720 http://www.blogcloud.com.br

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[Caleb Whitmore - Analytics Pros]

@jsyd: Google Analytics doesn't present any PCI compliance issues because you're never going to put any personally identifiable information into Google Analytics per their TOS which prohibits doing this.  I would guess 60% to 70% of the web's retailers use Google Analytics, so you wouldn't be alone.  If you want to have stronger data ownership gaurantees, privacy gaurantees, a support and data SLA, then you might want to consider Google Analytics Premium.  Feel free to email me to find out more about this.

Overall it's sad to see Urchin being retired.  It really is a great product and there's very little for alternatives out there.  We've been reviewing other solutions and are coming up pretty empty handed so far.  Systems like Splunk that purport to be great for Web Analytics are really not up to the job compared to Urchin.  WebTrends is largely out of reach for most Urchin users as a solution, and the open source and free options are absolutely terrible.  So... keep running Urchin? :)  

And, just to clarify, your Urchin server is NOT going to just stop working and you won't be confined to the same install location.  Google will continue to support license resets indefinitely after the retirement date, so you can continue to use Urchin for as long as you can maintain a place to run it.  There's plenty of folks still using Urchin 5 circa 2004, so I could see people using Urchin 7 well into the middle of this decade.

@Gabriel: you make a good point, however I do agree it's really unlikely that Google will reverse this decision.  Urchin's end was announced the same day as several other project retirements, so reading between the lines, this was part of Larry's overall house-cleaning, refocusing efforts since he came on as CEO of Google.  Given that, I think a reversal would be very unlikely, however it never hurts to make our voices known that we would still like the product!

Best,

-Caleb

_________________________________________

Caleb Whitmore | Founder & Principal Consultant
ANALYTICS PROS | My Book | LinkedIn | Twitter @analyticspros
google analytics certified partners

ca...@analyticspros.com
Office:   541-639-3738

Direct:   541-728-0275
Mobile:  541-633-3075

[Jeff Sturm]

Overall it's sad to see Urchin being retired.  It really is a great product and there's very little for alternatives out there.  We've been reviewing other solutions and are coming up pretty empty handed so far.  Systems like Splunk that purport to be great for Web Analytics are really not up to the job compared to Urchin.  WebTrends is largely out of reach for most Urchin users as a solution, and the open source and free options are absolutely terrible.  So... keep running Urchin? :)  

 

Agreed.  I presume part of Google's motivation for eliminating Urchin is to drive more customers to Google Analytics, Premium or otherwise.  Given the difference in cost I don't know if many customers will make that jump to Premium.

 

For our needs, we have to consider moving to Premium.  We started on Google Analytics, then begin migrating to Urchin two years ago, and finished that transition last year at the same time we upgraded to 7.0.  So needless to say, the timing was horrible for us.  We plan to run Urchin 7.2 at least through the end of 2012, but will start planning a migration in the meantime.

 

In our production Urchin server today we have over 900 profiles and hundreds of users, and handle millions of visits each day.  The product has a few bugs we worked around (e.g. parallel processing doesn't work for remote log sources) but overall it's done a great job.  We were able to automate the management of profile for the most part, thanks to an intuitive MySQL schema for profile/filter/log/user metadata.  That was one of our pain points with GA, requiring tedious management of accounts and profiles.  We also use the data API extensively—we can drive the Urchin API hard, extracting tens of millions of records a day if needed, but GA restricts our API use with CAPTCHA challenges.

 

It's not entirely clear whether GA Premium would solve all our challenges, and I'd imagine we'll be speaking to a reseller soon to learn more and/or obtain a trial edition.

 

If anyone who still reads this forum discovers a successful migration path off Urchin, regardless of the product/vendor they choose, I'd love to hear about it.  Would Google mind if we used this forum to discuss migration?  I don't see why they would, they're abandoning us anyway :-(

 

-Jeff

[Caleb Whitmore - Analytics Pros]

Jeff,

I appreciate your thoughts.  Yours is a case we've seen countless times before, and honestly one that I don't think the decision makers at Google took into full account.  Until GA supports scaling issues like hundreds of accounts migrating from Urchin back to GA is a formidable task to consider.

I think think is a great place to discuss migration options too - I can't conceive Google would be upset about that and (hi Google) if they are, then I would consider it an important conversation for them to participate in.  Google never has been pushy about GA and I am pretty confident that the Urchin retirement isn't a secret evil plan to get the last bastions of Urchin users to move onto Google Analytics.  I think it's probably more of a challenge we can all understand - resources, strategy, where to put energy - and Google decided, as they said in their announcement, that they need to focus on Google Analytics and close the chapter on Urchin.

We work with GA standard and GA Premium, so if you want to discuss whether GAP is an option feel free to reach out.  We're also working on finding a migration path for Urchin data to other tool(s) - follow me on Twitter or our blog to catch info about what we come up with there.

Best,

-Caleb

_________________________________________

Caleb Whitmore | Founder & Principal Consultant
ANALYTICS PROS | My Book | LinkedIn | Twitter @analyticspros
google analytics certified partners

ca...@analyticspros.com
Office:   541-639-3738

Direct:   541-728-0275
Mobile:  541-633-3075

[Jeff Sturm]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: urchin...@googlegroups.com [mailto:urchin...@googlegroups.com] On

> Behalf Of jsyd
> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 10:03 AM
>
> Since Urchin is being discontinued and licenses only work on the server and directory
> that the license is configured for. The recommendation is to switch to Google
> Analytics. However, the reason we choose Urchin over Google Analytics is the
> software is hosted and we wouldn't have to send any data to a third party (Google). I
> have concerns around PCI security when using Google Analytics and have not been able
> to find any reliable information.

You surely know from reading the documentation that GA does not collect personally-identifiable information (provided you don't supply PII in your tracking code, via e.g. custom vars). But if your intent is to prove this because you don't trust Google's claims, you'll need to find a testing approach that is suitable to a PCI auditor.

Maybe your testing efforts should focus on the actual tracking data. Tools like Firebug can capture the tracking pixel data transmitted to Google, and you could analyze their contents. Provided the tracking data isn't overly obfuscated, it should be straightforward to demonstrate no match for personal data. You'd need to do this testing on the browser, because attempt to intercept and read the packets at a network level will be thwarted by the SSL encrypted payload.

If, on the other hand, you don't trust that Google will never change their tracking to begin collecting such data (either knowingly or because they have been compromised), I don't have an answer for you. I'm confident Google won't allow this, because if discovered it would effectively put them out of business, but I have no idea if that explanation would satisfy a PCI auditor. My feeling is that Google's privacy policy combined with reasonable testing should be adequate.

-Jeff

[GVLabs]

I would not switch to Analytics, why?

First I need to know if balancers are working properly, I won't get
that in analytics.
Second, what if google changes its pricing policy over analytics
standard accounts?
And third, it is a privacy concern I wonder if in the USA you must
tell your users that your site is using analytics, but in Europe
you've to, and furthermore they're getting in trouble with Germany
over these issues.

All in all, urchin is reliable, I've it installed in a Virtual
Machine, if I need more resources I've just have to increase the ram,
processor or disk assigned to it, if the server crashes I just have to
move it.

If run two pilots with two different opensource based sollutions and
the results were awfull, about 3 times less visits, yes, you get some
nice features with those products such as the heat map, but data is
not realiable since it only tracks javascript and does not contrast
data with logs.

We will keep it working though 2012, and 2013... untill something
better and cheap pops out.

On 16 feb, 16:03, jsyd <johnsydo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> To whom it may concern,
>
> Since Urchin is being discontinued and licenses only work on the
> server and directory that the license is configured for.  The
> recommendation is to switch to Google Analytics.  However, the reason
> we choose Urchin over Google Analytics is the software is hosted and
> we wouldn't have to send any data to a third party (Google).  I have
> concerns around PCI security when using Google Analytics and have not
> been able to find any reliable information.
>
> I have asked the question on the Google Analytics form but received no

> response:https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-...

[Actual Metrics]

We are working on the "better and cheaper" option you mentioned -- the product is called Angelfish.

www.angelfishstats.com