MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – March 28, 2005 – Google Inc. today announced it
has agreed to acquire Urchin Software Corporation, a San Diego,
California based web analytics company.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Urchin is a web site analytics solution used by web site owners and
marketers to better understand their users’ experiences, optimize
content and track marketing performance. Urchin tools are available as
a hosted service, a software product and through large web hosting
providers. These products are used by thousands of popular sites on the
Internet.
Google plans to make these tools available to web site owners and
marketers to better enable them to increase their advertising return on
investment and make their web sites more effective.
“We want to provide web site owners and marketers with the
information they need to optimize their users’ experience and
generate a higher return-on-investment from their advertising
spending,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product
management, Google. “This technology will be a valuable addition to
Google’s suite of advertising and publishing products.”
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions. Google
anticipates that the acquisition will close before the end of April.
So this is interesting on a number of levels. Urchin was a third party system that many used to understand their Google ads, among others. As part of a Google suite of tools, it will take on a decidedly different cast. More as the word trickles out. BTW, I was told by the tipster that the price was $30 million.