Woopra analytics monitors website traffic in real time

Woopra provides real-time analytics for your website

Woopra provides real-time analytics for your website - image from woopra.com

Website analytics refers to the concept of tracking, measuring and analyzing the traffic to and away from a website. Google Analytics is the dominant player in this space, thanks to their purchase of market-leader Urchin several years ago. Google actually offers Urchin software for installation on your web server for $3000, but most users’ needs are met by the use of the free Google Analytics which is installed by placing a few lines of JavaScript at the bottom of every web page on a site.

The problem with Google Analytics is the delay. Statistics are reported, on average, 24 hours after they occur. If you get a run of visitors to your site, you won’t know it until the next day. If your site is referenced in a popular blog or on a site with traffic such as Digg, you may not know what is happening until well after the fact.

Enter Woopra. Woopra is a product from iFusion Labs, LLC. Woopra gives you a real-time look at who is looking at your website and what exactly they’re doing. Woopra is installed on a website like Google Analytics, with a simple piece of JavaScript on each page. Unlike Google Analytics, which is accessed by a browser, Woopra is used by installing the desktop client software on your computer. This method allows for better visual effects and faster response time than Google Analytics.

Click to enlarge - image from woopra.com

As an example, click to enlarge the screenshot to the right. You’ll see at the top that there are several websites associated with this Woopra account. The live view for onemansblog.com is shown in the screenshot, with 71 users currently listed as viewing the site. The viewers’ locations, as determined by the IP addresses, are mapped at the upper left with a small, white dot located on the source of each page request. When the users view this site, the dots flash, alerting the Woopra user to the visitors. The details for the visitors are shown on the right. We can see operating system, browser, IP address, city, screen resolution and more for each visitor. We can see the click history of each user and which pages were viewed and the order in which they were viewed. Visits and page views are listed at the upper left, and the actual pages currently being viewed are listed in the column on the left.

Elsewhere in the software lies the ability to tag users. If you recognize the IP or referring site as belonging to someone you know, you can name that viewer so you can quickly tell when he comes back the next time. You can configure notifications to tell when that tagged user comes back. The part we found scary is the actual ability to initiate a pop-up on the screen of your viewer that allows you to chat with him or her.

Woopra’s analytics package is still in beta. We started using it eight months ago, both for auctioneertech.com and aarontraffas.com, as well as at the Purple Wave. For the Purple Wave website, we quickly learned that the page views are capped at 10,000 per day while the service is in beta – once a site has that many views, it simply doesn’t record any more for the day. We don’t have that problem yet at auctioneertech.com, but when we requested acceptance into the beta program it took us four weeks to become approved for the trial. I’ve received reports that their wait time is closer to a couple weeks, but be prepared to wait a while after you request to try it.

We haven’t seen any reports as to what the service will cost when its finally released from the free beta, but we can say that the information Woopra provides even during the trial is impressive and valuable for any website, especially considering that it can be used in conjunction with Google Analytics without any problems.

Sign up for your Woopra trial today at http://www.woopra.com/members/signup.jsp.

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Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES

twitter.com/traffas | aarontraffas.com | aarontraffasband.com

Aaron Traffas, CAI, AMM, CES, is an auctioneer from Sharon, Kansas. For the last 22 years he's worked for Purple Wave. Aaron served as president of the Kansas Auctioneers Association in 2017 and on the National Auctioneers Association Education Institute Board of Trustees from 2009 through 2013. He is a past instructor at CAI and co-wrote the original ATS and AMM designation courses from NAA. An active contract bid caller, he has advanced to the finals in multiple state auctioneer contests. During the summer, Aaron operates a farm in south central Kansas. Aaron is an active singer and songwriter and the Aaron Traffas Band's latest music can be found at aarontraffasband.com as well as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.