View Full Version : Google Analytics: Tracking the Competition
Firebird428
12-12-2005, 02:46 PM
I noticed that Analytics has a cool geographic locator of where all your visits are coming from around the world. I was wondering, are there any reports in Analytics that show the exact IP addresses of who is visiting your site? I couldn't find one.
GoogleGuy
12-15-2005, 01:26 AM
That's a good question. Not that I've run across, but I haven't dug through eveything..
dannysullivan
12-15-2005, 06:29 AM
I've actually been surprised that you can't drill down in that way for other things. For example, I want to see exact URL strings, so I can find the exact page sending me traffic. No dice.
I have a feeling that in the paid version, perhaps more of that detail is offered but can't say for certain, as I haven't played with those.
Firebird428
12-15-2005, 12:20 PM
danny, I'm still really new to all this Analytics stuff. There's a paid version? Where do I find out more about this paid version? Is it the old Urchin or something?
dannysullivan
12-15-2005, 02:01 PM
hmm -- maybe there isn't one :)
There is the Urchin software, http://www.google.com/analytics/urchin_software.html, and that I think will do more than the online version.
You might also look at:
Web Analytics, Demystified (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3560461) which reviews a good new book on the subject.
Which Stats Package is right for you? (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum39/3633.htm) which was a nice long thread of packages at WebmasterWorld.
Tracking Software Options (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5046) here on the forums covers some packages.
Conversion, ROI Improvement & Tracking (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forumdisplay.php?f=42) is an area of the forums with more.
KevinSource
12-16-2005, 11:39 AM
Urchin software does allow you to drilldown to individual IP's, I am surprised to hear that GA does not allow you to do this.
FYI, Urchin software is still available through resellers. I may be wrong, but I think Nacho is a reseller
calebw
12-21-2005, 03:31 PM
Urchin software does allow you to drilldown to individual IP's, I am surprised to hear that GA does not allow you to do this.
Urchin software is log analysis software. Your server logs record IP's and it is up to web analytics software to resolve IP's to hosts and provide reports based on that. Urchin 5 software has default reports for drilling down to IP's because it builds reports from server IP's. I believe GA does log user IP's, but you are right in that it doesn't make this readily available in any reports. There is a facility to have GA feed stats out to an external log file hosted on your server (or there was in Urchin 6, I haven't tested it in GA yet).
I may have a solution to getting user IP's into reports via the user-defined visitor segment facility GA provides... but stay tuned as I have just implemented my theoretical method and need to test it :).
calebw
12-21-2005, 10:33 PM
As promised, I have tested and found a way to track user IP's in Google Analytics. Here is a quick implementation guide.
Why
Google Analytics does not offer a facility by default to track individual user IP addresses in reports. However, Google Analytics DOES provide a handy feature called "user-defined segmentation". The standard set of reports in GA include a number of segmentation options (geographical, referring source, new/returning - all under "marketing optimization").
What
The user-defined field allows you to create custom visitor segments. Commonly, this is used to identify a visitor with a certain action and group, such as filling out a lead form for wholesale buyers. The value gets set when a utm variable gets set via an onload, onclick, onsubmit, or other event. This forms the foundation of my method for tracking user IP's.
How
These instructions are for a web site using site-wide includes and PHP, however the methodology can be applied to any site on any platform. The code that goes client-side is what matters.
1) Set the segmentation by using an onLoad event in the body tag: onLoad="javascript:__utmSetVar('segment name goes here')"
2) Insert code to set the segment name to equal the user's IP address: <?php echo $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; ?>
3)The final result will look like this: <body onLoad="javascript:__utmSetVar('<?php echo $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; ?>')">
other body tag elements can precede or follow the onLoad element
4) Client site the body tag and segment variable would look like: <body onLoad="javascript:__utmSetVar('164.13.25.124')">
Spiffy Benefits
Now that you have set the user-defined segment to be the user's IP address you can see IP's for a large number of the reports in Google Analytics. For example, you're looking at referring sources. Click the brown circle to the left of a row, click on "'cross-segment performance' -> user-defined" and you will see the IP's associated with that report.
Enjoy!
tonerman
01-29-2006, 08:21 PM
I have a zillion tools - some home grown, others like Analytics and Netracker. I often zero in on an IP address in my log files if I want to see the entire path of a visitor. The question I have is what is the biggest benefit of adding your IP drilldown functionality to Analytics? Can you find multiple clicks on the same ad and keyword by the same user for instance?
calebw
01-30-2006, 01:58 PM
Tonerman,
You can cross-compare an IP record against other data points like source, campaign, keyword, county, region, city, etc... in Google Analytics.
Can you find multiple clicks on the same ad and keyword?
You can view a report for an ad version and click the cross-compare icon and select the field you have IP data available under. You could then see if a given IP clicked on the ad and Analytics would show the total count of clicks for the given time-range. It would not list all the clicks and the specific time of each click for every IP. To correlate ads and keywords you would need to run the same reporting on your keyword data and probably export the data to excel from both reports. You could then use Excel to perform comparisons and check for instances of clicking on both the ad and performing a search.
-Caleb