Web analytics standards are few and far between, which is why I’m glad to blogivate about the Web Analytics Association’s recently released standard definitions for 26 web analytics metrics.  I’m curious to see how the world will respond to these basic definitions.   Standard vocabulary and definitions educate new practitioners, enable consistency in discussions, and lead to shared understandings that foster and promote innovation.  IMHO, the web analytics industry can only benefit from standards.  I certainly think they help to:

• Clarify misunderstanding and prevent confusion.  As the Internet continues to “go mainstream” and more money is invested in the “online channel,” the capital markets will continue to scrutinize and demand consistency in measurement.  The WAA standards set a new baseline for discussing internet measurement. 
• Align other companies and bodies and people expressing standards and using non-standard vocabulary.  If the WAA definitions reach a tipping point through broad industry adoption, other standards-setting bodies and industry organization will adopt and follow suit.  However
• Create a shared vocabulary.  It is not uncommon to hear references to objects in web analytics that are archaic (pages served), industry-specific (page impressions), or conceptually obsolete for certain goals (the number of “hits” as an indicator of site success).  The “names of things” are different across competing technologies.  I hope this document furthers discussion and leads to a common, shared global web analytics vocabulary.

So what are these new standards, you ask?  Here is the standard vocabulary (thanks to my friend Avinash Kaushik whose digitization of the document I have cut and pasted here :

• Building Block Terms: Page, Page Views, Visits, Unique Visitors, New Visitor, Repeat Visitor, Repeat Visitor & Returning Visitor
• Visit Characterization: Entry Page, Landing Page, Exit Page, Visit Duration, Referrer, Internal Referrer, External Referrer, Search Referrer, Visit Referrer, Original Referrer, Click-through, Click-through Rate/Ratio, Page Views per Visit
• Content Characterization: Page Exit Ratio, Single-Page Visits, Single Page View Visits (Bounces), Bounce Rate
• Conversion Metrics: Event, Conversion

Brief definitions for all these web metrics are listed below.  Make sure you download and read the full document.  There’s a lot more to it than listed below:

• Page: A page is an analyst definable unit of content.
• Page Views: The number of times a page (an analyst-definable unit of content) was viewed.
• Visits/Sessions: A visit is an interaction, by an individual, with a website consisting of one or more requests for an analyst-definable unit of content (i.e. “page view”). If an individual has not taken another action (typically additional page views) on the site within a specified time period, the visit session will terminate.
• Unique Visitors: The number of inferred individual people (filtered for spiders and robots), within a designated reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to a site. Each individual is counted only once in the unique visitor measure for the reporting period.
• New Visitor: The number of Unique Visitors with activity including a first-ever Visit to a site during a reporting period.
• Repeat Visitor: The number of Unique Visitors with activity consisting of two or more Visits to a site during a reporting period.
• Return Visitor: The number of Unique Visitors with activity consisting of a Visit to a site during a reporting period and where the Unique Visitor also Visited the site prior to the reporting period.
• Entry Page: The first page of a visit.
• Landing Page: A page intended to identify the beginning of the user experience resulting from a defined marketing effort.
• Exit Page: The last page on a site accessed during a visit, signifying the end of a visit/session.
• Visit Duration: The length of time in a session. Calculation is typically the timestamp of the last activity in the session minus the timestamp of the first activity of the session.
• Referrer: The referrer is the page URL that originally generated the request for the current page view or object.
• Internal Referrer: The internal referrer is a page URL that is internal to the website or a web-property within the website as defined by the user.
• External Referrer: The external referrer is a page URL where the traffic is external or outside of the website or a web-property defined by the user.
• Search Referrer: The search referrer is an internal or external referrer for which the URL has been generated by a search function.
• Visit Referrer: The visit referrer is the first referrer in a session, whether internal, external or null. 
• Original Referrer: The original referrer is the first referrer in a visitor’s first session, whether internal, external or null.
• Click-through: Number of times a link was clicked by a visitor.
• Click-through Rate/Ratio: The number of click-throughs for a specific link divided by the number of times that link was viewed.
• Page Views per Visit: The number of page views in a reporting period divided by number of visits in the same reporting period.
• Page Exit Ratio: Number of exits from a page divided by total number of page views of that page.
• Single-Page Visits: Visits that consist of one page regardless of the number of times the page was viewed.
• Single Page View Visits (Bounces): Visits that consist of one page-view.
• Bounce Rate: Single page view visits divided by entry pages.
• Event: Any logged or recorded action that has a specific date and time assigned to it by either the browser or server.
• Conversion: A visitor completing a target action.

In order for broad-based adoption and continued relevancy of these standards, I encourage the Web Analytics Association to: 

• Create broad consensus and agreement.  I was surprised the Web Analytics Association didn’t release these standards for comment to the larger membership and the public before releasing these standard definitions.  While I support the standards, I fear the perception of “dropping” standards on practitioners and vendors without providing a period for public commentary may slow adoption as people grumble about the nuances of the language.  After all, not all vendor’s tools or reporting comply exactly to the subtleties in these standards.
• Necessitate adoption by vendors and practitioners.  The old American expression says you say “po-tay-toe” I say “po-tah-toe;” I say “to-may-toe” you say “to-mah-toe.”   For broad adoption and usage of these standards, vendors need to integrate this vocabulary into graphical interfaces, reporting, documentation, training programs, and marketing messaging.  Consultants and practitioners need to “talk the talk.”  The Web Analytics Association should think about creating a “standards certification” program to verify adherence by certain companies and consultants.
• Identify compliance by vendors.  Current vendor vocabulary doesn’t conform to the standards, and there is currently no persuasive argument for vendors to adopt the definitions and modify their offerings.  The WAA needs to let the public know which vendors comply and which don’t and to what degree!
• Go beyond definitions to focus on interoperability.  Systems integration requires more than just definitions.  I’m looking forward to when these standards are described in XML.

Excellent job, Web Analytics Association!  If you haven’t joined, you should! 

Awesome news.  Thanks to my friend, Dylan Lewis -some call him Bob or Meriwether- the web analytics industry has a WIKI.  According to the almighty “define:” operator at Google via Answers.com, a Wiki is:

• A website or similar online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively.
• A collection of websites of hypertext, each of them can be visited and edited by anyone. “Wiki wiki” means “rapidly” in the Hawaiian language.
• Online collaboration model and tool that allows any user to edit some content of webpages through a simple browser.
• A web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website.

In true New England diction, it’s a wicked wiki.  Wicked awesome that is.

Here’s the word from the Passionate Analyst, himself:

I am pleased to announce that WikiWebAnalytics.com is now up and running. WikiWebAnalytics.com is THE place to provide details, articles, lore, and information about the world of web analytics.

http://www.wikiwebanalytics.com/

This wiki is meant to provide an online resource for web analytics professionals and people wanting to know more about web analytics. Contributing to it will help shape the web analytics industry, community, and future web analysts.

Here is the goal - create 300 articles in 3 months. 300 articles will help the wiki become THE resource for new and existing web analytics professionals.

Check it out at http://www.wikiwebanalytics.com.  Have fun starting an article or editing one. 

It may be high time for the Standards Committee at the Web Analytics Association to add currently-approved definitions, methinks.

Virtual Worlds and Web Analytics… Y’all ever play around with Second Life or World of Warcraft?  I have.  I think the concepts and worlds are very, very interesting and fun.  I find their messaging around the analytics of their user base even more entertaining though.  It’s like looking at ComScore and NNR for accurate web analytics data… really fascinating demographic stuff of questionable accuracy outside the frame of their audience panel and technology.  For example, I have three avatars, but have only downloaded one client. The trends are compelling though…

Some CMO’s I know won’t touch Second Life with a virtual ten foot, paisley, polygon pole.  Some finance folks I know laugh over beers about Linden Dollars.  Does that mean specific corporations become a central bank setting monetary policy subordinate to the central bank in the server’s home country?  How do International Fisher Relations apply when you have no interest rate?  My friends who have physical bodies say “virtual worlds are for when you have no friends in the real one.” Harsh criticisms, but they don’t negate the fact that something is happening and people are participating on some scale.  We’re all going to “do web analytics” on virtual worlds some day (maybe sooner than we think).

Where are the API’s for analytics data from these companies?  I believe Linden Labs announcing an analytics API would help push adoption by marketers forward and increase spend rates.  When I look at emerging technologies for 3D online collaboration, like OpenCroquet, I see the end of walled gardens like Second Life and WoW unless they open up the platform:

“Second Life doesn’t create a computational environment that belongs to its users - it uses a constrained computational environment (its servers) to capture “eyeballs” for a variety of schemes to derive revenue from them. With Croquet, users/developers may freely share, modify and view the source code (due to Croquet’s liberal license), the technology is not hosted on a single organization’s server (and hence governed by that organization as was the case with ViOS and now with Second Life), and it provides a complete professional programmer’s language (Smalltalk/Squeak), integrated development environment (IDE), and class library in every distributed, running participant’s copy (the programming development environment itself is simultaneously shareable and extensible). Croquet based worlds can also be updated while the system is live and running.”

Other online collaboration environments that would benefit from an open source of verifiable measurement include:

• Uni-verse.  An “open source Internet platform for multi-user, interactive, distributed, high-quality 3D graphics and audio for home, public and personal use.”
• Muse. A “software platform allowing organizations to create collaborative custom solutions that utilize rich media, 3D environments, and multi-user capabilities. Using Muse, developers can create immersive 3D environments that unite video and animation, audio, html, 3D models and much more.”
• Virtual Object System.  A “free and open platform for multiuser 3D virtual reality and interactive, collaborative 3D virtual spaces, and collaborative data systems in general.”

And the big guys and gals over at Microsoft and Sun are experimenting too (where’s Google and Yahoo? - do tell me!):

• Microsoft’s Task Gallery.  A “novel approach to bring existing, unmodified Windows applications into a running 3D virtual environment. The result is a working platform for experimentation in 3D user interfaces, in which the user retains all familiar productivity tools. This also allows for a smooth transition between traditional 2D interfaces and our new 3D territory.”
• Sun’s Looking Glass Project. A “Java technology and explores bringing a richer user experience to the desktop and applications via 3D windowing and visualization capabilities.”

Notice what all of these visionary ideas have in common: openness.  It’s only through open standards to key interfaces in these systems that we web analysts will be able to do what we do.  

So that beckons the rhetorical question, which web analytics tools right now could even work with extended data models for 3D virtual collaboration environments? 

I’m looking forward to how management at the following companies evolves their business models to focus on openness through analytics enabling their sustainable growth rate:

• There.com
• Multiverse
• Forterra Systems
• Whyville - ahh, my favorite question “why?”
• ProtonMedia
• Entropia Universe
• Habbo
• Areae

As Marshall Sponder forms the Web Analytics Association’s Social Media working group, I’m looking forward to hearing your voice on the phone calls.  Make sure you also read my good friend Eric Peterson’s take on some of this area as well.

On Sunday night May 6, the Web Analytics Association had their annual meeting.  Attended by about 100 hardcore members who trekked from all over the Earth to participate, we went over the business at hand.

Some of the highlights for me:

• Positive cash flow.  The WAA’s budget is looking strong.

• Solid executive management.  I spent some time with Bryan Induni and was impressed with his plans for the organization.  I also learned that in Idaho, if you like to hike in the woods (I do), it’s a good idea to bring a gun (to prevent cougar bites).

• Strong strategic leadership.  Directors Emeritus, best-selling author Bryan Eisenberg, and savvy WebTrends CEO, Greg Drew, were presented with honors for their significant contributions to the industry.  Jim Sternepresented them with “taking sticks” and a plaque commemorating their achievements.  In Native American culture, tribe leaders presented these foot-long intricately carved totems to individuals who wanted to address the tribe.  Since Jim didn’t take them back, and I saw the guys leave with them, that means they’re sticking around, if just a bit more “personamously!”

• Expanding education.  For those not familiar with the University of British Columbia’s Web Analytics award of achievement, check it out.  My friend and co-worker, Steve Mills, took the first course, and came back with stellar reviews.  Any wonder why he always asks me excellent, relevant questions at work?

Jim Novo, emperor of all things Direct Marketing and beyond, and Raquel Collins, analytics educator and master planner, have some forward-thinking plans for the UBC WA course.  We’re going to see partnerships with other institutions of higher learning and more significant credentialing of graduates.  

• International outreach.  We all live together on Earth.  The only things that make us different are language and location.  At the end of the day, the “smile” achieved from “getting it” is ubiquitous across humanity.  I’m glad to know such fine consultancies, such as OX2, and folks like Aurelie and Rene are doing smart and fantastic things across the pond with web analytics.

• Membership survey.  Check it out.  Audience questions showed we’re “wicked” geeks–New England slang for “awesome.”  My favorite: “Have we looked at how satisfaction levels across length of membership.”  Hear that WAA?  Let’s cross dimensions! Heh.

So the future is bright for the WAA.  If you aren’t a member, you are certainly missing out on what my Greg Drew said is, and I agree, “the most exciting time in your career!”

So join!  Membership has its rewards… and discounts… and hot tamales!

And, for regular readers, I’ll be back next week, once I return from VACAY, with an update all about EMetrics intertwined with some uniqueness of experience from my time out West.  Today, I’m off to Muir Woods…