I think that makes sense, you are essentially trying to understand content consumption, or people moving from one “block” to the next rather than page1, page2, page3… This should be quite possible.

In fact you can use the Google Analytics funnel report to create a view that looks like what you want. Start there, possible next step is this and then that and then goal. You get the idea.

ClickTracks also had a great funnel report. I love the ultimate flexibility of it and the ability to have multiple pieces of content (individual pages or directories) in each step, and of course multiple steps to a goal. Check out this page:

http://clicktracks.com/funnel_report.php

or this flash video:

http://clicktracks.com/demos_small/funnel_report_demo.php

I am sure other tools can do this as well.

Hope this helps a bit.

-Avinash.

At each level, pages have different functions. If you look at the pages in groups of what they were designed to do, you can then analyze to see if they are doing what they were intended for.

When asked by clients how people navigate their sites, my customray answer is “Only in two ways: a) how you planned it, and b) not, the latter being the most common “pattern”.

Apart from doing scenario analysis (in WebTrends; Fallout Analysis in Omniture, etc.) of preferably closed process (in which you can’t go to step 3 if you didn’t complete step 2, etc.), which is rather analyzing a pre-configured model than pathing, I too believe that the heuristic qualities of that type of analysis is very low, if not null in many instances.

I find the idea of determining (linear regression?) the influencial/causal weight of critical pages on certain actions (ex. completion of so and so) VERY interesting. So, instead of trying to base optimization decisions on vague pathing, we could identify which pages have a stronger propensity to “deliver” the expected behavior.

The path anlaysis has been a very misunderstood element of measurement, and always one of the most disappointing, IMO. I always see where clients that have analytics software with this feature always believe that they are missing something. I think because it looks to be a feature that promises valuable data, but rarely delivers.

I agree wholeheartedly that the analytics programs (Shout-out to ClickTracks) that allow the user to uncover “the long tail” paths by segmentation are the most valuable.

If anyone is interested in our approach and how the data expresses persuasiveness, and how segmentation works, please consider attending the next free virtual class in our series: http://www.clicktracks.com/seminars/

It is midnight in the US as I type this and the illusion of walking backward in a user’s path just seems so dreamy …… nice …. interesting.

:) Like they do in fine art, you turn a painting around to check if it is actually symmetrical; looking at it the right way up is something one gets used to.

I only look at one path at a time defined by a specific entry page; that is, the entire report includes only one entry page. That way, you “force” the consolidation of visitor paths and you often do see “most popular path” hitting 20% - 50%.

I think this idea quite insightful and you are both increasing the population but also using it in a sense like the exception example in the blog post. This is great.

Links on a page is one of the reasons path analysis might not give insights, not in the sense you mentioned but traditional sense. It is often not considered in analysis.

and this is killer, the “influence” of each page in the content group in convincing our site visitors to move to the next stage

Yes, that is “killer”, I’ll have to ask John Marshall what kind of algo he is using there.

I think we basically agree that “unfocused path reports” are useless. Personally, I think path analysis is critical but I never look at “paths” in the traditional sense of the reports, I only look at one path at a time defined by a specific entry page; that is, the entire report includes only one entry page. That way, you “force” the consolidation of visitor paths and you often do see “most popular path” hitting 20% - 50%.

The success of this approach depends quite a bit on the navigation, of course. If you have 100 link choices on the entry page it probably does not work as well, but I would argue that giving people more than, say, 10 link choices is insane anyway, and 5 is probably much better…

Adding to Robbin’s comment… How about Path Analysis providing insight on user-brand/site interaction, awareness, involvement and therefore quality of audience? Thoughts?

The wonderful thing about analysis, vs reporting, is that there are always multiple answers and those answers are influenced by our experiences and perspectives. There is no right or wrong, just different.

The source of my perspective is that if our website is getting a million visitors a month then I would be on very thin ice inferring anything from the path (or think site interaction) of a thousand visitors.

This is especially true if you pause for a moment and think that any given website exists for multiple purpose, when you pick a small sample you increase the chance of seeing causality in things that you should not.

On brand / awareness / involvement I would switch from relying on Path Analysis to doing lab testing, get a few people in a room and ask them what they think. This is a bit better than Path because atleast you can ask them stuff and get into their head (even accounting for the Hawthorne Effect).

I stress that this is just a personal point of view, the great thing about our space is there is enough room for many different points of view.

If we were to work backward from desired site action (say sign up, purchase etc.) can path analysis tell us what those 20 questions or information points are, that ready up the user for an action?

It is midnight in the US as I type this and the illusion of walking backward in a user’s path just seems so dreamy …… nice …. interesting. :)

Traditional Path Analysis, I think not. But as you rightly point out “influence rating”, as outlined in the post above, in each content group I think certainly yes.

Thanks again for some thought provoking comments.

1) Adding to Robbin’s comment… How about Path Analysis providing insight on user-brand/site interaction, awareness, involvement and therefore quality of audience? Thoughts?

2) To draw an association, say Path Analysis is a game of 20 questions - the user tends to or needs to assimilate certain points of information to think/feel about what is being read or seen, so that it can be actioned. If we were to work backward from desired site action (say sign up, purchase etc.) can path analysis tell us what those 20 questions or information points are, that ready up the user for an action? Given this, it only makes sense that content grouping is then a more logical way to arrive at level of importance of each factor to the user.

3) Given the movement to user-generated content, the question of “Why not let democracy flourish?” is very appropriate.

Paths by “content group” have been available for quite some time in WebTrends,

I think you are right but what is different about the latest clicktracks attempt is that in the “content group” you can get the usage of each page in the content group plus, and this is killer, the “influence” of each page in the content group in convincing our site visitors to move to the next stage.

This is simple in computation but awesome in insights.

Avinash Kaushik talks about the problems with Path Analysis which repeats what was said in Tradtional Web Analytics is Dead Podcast and Avinash and the 10,000 foot Analytics view. Listen in. Web Analytics is dead - Part II ; there’s als…

Paths by “content group” have been available for quite some time in WebTrends, I believe ever since they implemented a “tag” version. Agree that path analysis is worthless without segmentation, but then again, (as you pointed out previously), just about any analysis is worthless without segmentation!