“Path Analysis” is a type of analytics report that monitors the page views leading up to and following the view of a specified page.  For instance, a path analysis of the main “Products” page on a website might include the three pages leading to it and the 5 pages following it.  The report indicates the most frequent paths.

Most of the time, I find this to be quite useless, especially when looking at more than 3 pages in a path.  Why?  The internet is a web of pages, not a pathway of pages.  So path analysis is really just a list of the many different ways a visitor can arrive at a specified page.  Only if you have a gazillion visitors to your site will this information eventually (if ever) become meaningful.  Sure, there are some experiences in a website that are linear in nature – filling out a serial form, registration, checkout, etc. – but all of those experiences are carefully monitored by conversion funnels (or should be).

However, there are two VERY good situations in which path analysis is not only useful but necessary. Read the rest of this entry »