We can't get the level of detail we need using the "bulk" statistics available for our website. Our site has very distinct sections which we need to track separately AND cumulatively.
Google provides precisely the tool we need from opentracker. The snippet of code installed in every page can have an ID tagged to it for grouping data. We can use IDs for each channel and track them independently. By tracking the same information, but with the ability to break it down into channels we can get a much better picture of what is going on with our traffic.
Aside from this being a valuable feature for us, it might be prudent for Opentracker to implement this improvement. Google purchased Urchin and is likely to offer a light version right in their Adsense reporting. We run adsense ads on every page of our site, at least the ones we are concerned with tracking, so the Urchin lite would likely provide us all the reporting tools we need.
Hi Grant,
Thanks for your posting, yes you are right, everybody is wondering how Google's growth will impact their corners of the world. For example, they are going to introduce a payment processing system shortly.
To answer your specific point / question; the feature that you describe is / will be called 'content grouping'.
We've been working on this feature for quite a while; the Top Directories & Files report was a precursor. Also a bit of overlap with our understanding of a related feature called 'individual page reporting'.
We're planning to roll up our sleeves and fully develop & release the feature this Fall / Winter.