Using setVar (_utmsetvar / utm_setvar) for custom segmentation

SetVar (for older versions utm_setvar or _utmsetvar) is a function in the Google Analytics javascript code that allows you to set a custom segmentation rule. GA already offers a set of standard segmentations, as well as more advanced segmentation techniques in the reports interface, but setVar (_utmsetvar / utm_setvar) allows you to take a slice from your traffic before the reports and apply the segmentation options available in the reporting. This kind of custom segmentation gives you an extra dimension and more freedom to interpret the data through the reports.

Tags set for setVar in the code will appear in the report Visitors > User Defined.

Uses of setVar  ( _utmsetvar  / utm_setvar)

SetVar can be set to tag specific(entry) pages, but also values from a registration form, e.g. “job title”, which would show the values set for this item in your registration form. This will enable you to figure out how each of these visitor segments behave on the site (and possibly use this knowledge to adjust your marketing strategies).

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Google Analytics vs AWstats log file analysis – the differences

Google Analytics provides decent functionality and data, but how much more value is there when compared to a log file analysis tool like AWstats and what are the benefits or using one versus the other?

AWstats

AWstats (Advanced Web Statistics) is an open source log analyzer written in Perl that can use a variety of log formats and runs on a variety of operating systems. AWstats was designed with the main purpose to inform system administrators rather than website business owners, web marketers and web analysts, which basically means that making sense of AWstats data for marketing/business purposes is not very straightforward. Moreover, the reports are extremely basic and just spit out raw data which doesn’t tell you an awful lot about the website dynamics and stats that matter to improve your efforts.

AWstats processes the log files that most web servers churn out by default and organizes the data in a bunch of basic reports. This tool was designed for the needs of “Way back when…” so it’ll be of limited use. One major difference between data collection methods of AWstats and GA, is that the first logs data on the physical webserver, whereas GA logs data on the site itself and stores the information in a remote location (on Google’s servers).

Should you compare figures of AWstats and GA like with like, you’ll notice that AWstats figures will be much larger. An important reason for this is the fact that AWstats detects search engine bots that access (“crawl”) your website to learn more about its content, link structure etc., whereas GA can’t detect this type of traffic. These days, crawl stats are far less important than back in the day, and information on how search engine bots see your website is readily available from the major search engines, once you sign up to look into these services. Examples are Google Webmaster tools and Yahoo! Site Explorer.

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