Recently I interviewed Urchin’s co-founder, Scott Crosby. Google acquired Urchin back in November, 2005. Since then Crosby has been leading the development and business objectives for the Urchin program at Google as Enterprise Business Development Manager. We discussed the future of the product and compared it to Google’s own free website traffic analytics program, aptly named Google Analytics.

First I wanted to know if Google has a roadmap planned for the continued development of Urchin. According to Crosby, Google does have a roadmap, but it’s specifically for internal use only. However, he was happy to give me some highlights on the next version of Urchin. Based on the feedback I received, Urchin still has a future and with it comes several new features.

Currently Urchin does not offer “direct” integration with your website. Instead, it sucks up your log files, crunches the data, and spits out useful reports. Next I wanted to know if there are plans to implement ad tracking capabilities. Crosby said the next version’s ad tracking feature will be similar to the paid add-on that’s available now called the Campaign Tracking Module, but will be included at no extra charge. “This feature allows you to track campaigns from search engines, email campaigns, email or web based newsletters, and much more. It does require a bit of extra work because you have to tag your URLs for it to show up in your log files. Regardless, it will be worth the extra effort.”

As you know, Google Analytics is free to anyone with a Google account. Google provides the server space and regularly updates the software, whereas Urchin requires a purchased license fee and the website owner must provide the server, hardware, and bandwidth. Licensing fees for Urchin start at $5,000 available through preferred vendors. You can’t get the software directly from Google.

Google offers partners like FastServers.Net Hosted Urchin licenses on a monthly rental basis instead of purchasing them upfront. Allowing vendors the ability to rent licenses monthly provides greater flexibility and savings for website owners wanting to install and run Urchin. Currently there are no plans to change Urchin’s name. However, according to Crosby, the name may remain the same or it may be called Google Analytics Installable or something similar.

All features currently available in Google Analytics will be available in the next version of Urchin, but without some AdWords integration. Software-only reports such as status and error codes, robots and spiders reports, and non-html file type reports will be included at no additional charge. I asked Crosby if AJAX, or movable objects on a web based application, will be used in the next version. As of today, the roadmap does not call for AJAX, but as the development cycle continues, Google may decide to implement the code for enhanced usability. For those of you not familiar with AJAX, login to your Google Analytics account, click and hold any of the modules on the dashboard, and move them around accordingly. Make sure you are viewing the new interface as the old interface does not utilize AJAX.

Crosby said Urchin is better suited for website owners who want to keep their information private. “Many companies do not want Google to receive and store confidential web traffic information even in anonymous form. They prefer software they can install and control on their own,” said Crosby. He also told me that nearly all government, financial, and many non-US entities will only use Urchin software for this reason. In fact, those entities represent 50% of Urchin’s market share.

To sum up, if you want the added privacy and complete control over your data, pay the license fee for Urchin. And you can customize your website statistics information to fit your organization’s specific requirements. Or you can leave it up to Google Analytics to keep track of your website traffic, data, and reports at no charge to you.

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