Using Path Analysis

Analyzing the paths visitors take through your site can provide you with valuable insight into their interests and behaviors. Using path analysis, you can identify significant pages in your site and track visitor paths to or from these pages. Path analysis allows you to see how visitors navigate to an important page on your site and where they go from that page, giving you a very focused look at key navigation paths. For example, you may be interested in the paths visitors take to reach your on-site search page and where they go after they get there. Understanding navigation paths can help you understand which content is most interesting, which areas of your site confuse visitors or cause them to leave the site, and whether visitors typically follow the optimal path through your site.

Webtrends provides you with a variety of ways to gather meaningful navigation insight including:

• Analyzing which pages your visitors use to enter and exit your site
• Looking at the first few pages visitors visit when they enter your site
• Viewing how visitors go to or from key points within your site

Preconfigured Reports Using Path Analysis

Several preconfigured path analysis reports are included in the standard reports provided under Site Design in the Navigation, Path Analysis, and Single-Level Paths report subfolders. You can configure additional reports using path analysis.

Configuring Path Analysis

To configure path analysis:

1. In the left pane, click Administration > Web Analysis > Report Configuration > Path Analysis.

2. Click New.

3. In the Name text box, type the name you want to identify the definition in Webtrends Administration.

4. In the Report Title text box, type the name that will identify this Path Analysis definition in the report Table of Contents.

5. In the Page to Track text box, type the directory and file name of the page you want to track, for example
   /search/results.asp.

6. If you want to report on the paths visitors used to reach the specified page, specify the number of pages to track in the To This Item text box.

7. If you want to report on the paths visitors took after the viewed the specified page, specify the number of pages to track in the From This Item text box.

8. Click Save to finish.

9. If you did not select Global: Include in all profiles to apply this definition to all profiles, edit your profile and enable your path analysis definition to include it in reports.

   1. In the left pane, click Administration > Web Analysis > Reports & Profiles.
   2. Mouse over a profile and click Edit on the Action menu.
   3. Click Advanced > Path Analysis.
   4. Select the Path Analysis definition to apply to the selected profile.
   5. Click Save.

10. If you are not using the Complete View template, ensure that the Paths Forward reports folder (for reports tracking traffic to the page) or the Paths Reverse reports folder (for reports tracking traffic from the page) has been added to your report template. You can add these folders to your template quickly from the Content dialog of the template settings by clicking Add Report and selecting the Auto-Populated Folder Library.

11. After the next analysis cycle for the profile, you can view the results in your reports. In the default Complete View template, Path Analysis reports are located in the Site Design > Path Analysis, Site Design > Paths, Forward, and Site Design > Paths, Reverse report folders.