If you remember correctly, Google bought the Urchin Software Corporation in 2005, and reformed Urchin software to Google Analytics. The one major change in the software was that Google allowed Analytics to be free.
Now Google Analytics may have some competition on its hands, and to make matters worse, the competitor is Google itself. Google recently released the new Google Urchin into public beta.
Urchin was created for companies that have content behind a security firewall or have other restrictions that do not allow them to use Google Analytics. With Urchin, you can install and manage the software on your own servers while Google Analytics is service-hosted and maintained by Google.
While Urchin and Google Analytics have their similarities, they do have many differences. One of the biggest differences that could be even be a deciding factor for some users, is that fact that Google Analytics is free and Google Urchin is not. Urchin is being offered as a 90-day free trial, but when that period is over, Urchin will cost $2,995.
In an emailed interview, Google Analytics Group Product Marketing Manager Brett Crosby told me:
“Urchin is also useful for those who want to perform ad-hoc historical log processing, who want to store their web analytics on local servers, hosting providers wishing to provide a value-added analytics service, and those requiring third-part audits.”
Crosby also noted that Google Urchin is available in the following 9 supported languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese.
Many upgrades have been added to the new Urhcin. To find out more, check out the Murdok video entitled: “Google Urchin Examined.”
