Mining the click stream

Mercado Software has released Version 2.0 of its IntuiFind SearchStream Analysis software, which is designed to offer business and technical managers insight into search and browse requests, results returned and subsequent user actions.

Mercado explains the software enables managers to better understand how the navigation process, the underlying content and the products or services themselves can be optimized to best serve the business goals. This latest release includes a comprehensive and highly configurable set of predefined HTML reports that can be easily assessed through a browser.

By understanding search and browse behavior, says the company, business and technical managers can take action to optimize the site's navigation, supplement or adjust the site content or make changes to the products or services offering.

SearchStream now contains more than 15 predefined reports, including load statistics, usage trends, types of navigation methods used, searches producing no results, searches producing prolific results, the most popular search and browse terms, top search and browse combinations and the results viewed most often. Reports are available for daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly information. These reports are configurable, and custom reports can also be added.

Mercado says SearchStream logs capture all activities related to search and browse: user requests, returned results and user's actions following search and browse. The logs are extensible so that additional application-specific events (such as add-to-cart or purchase) can be tracked and reported upon in their relation to search and browse. Summary statistics and information are presented in what is said to be a series of intuitive, easy to read reports, which are accessible through HTML navigation pages. Optionally, the logs themselves can be combined with information collected by other analysis tools and can be viewed using third party reporting tools.