Data Error in Full Paths Report

[jeremy_burns]

Within Sitecatalyst, I am trying to get an idea of a user's path view with different entry pages that are the start of a conversion funnel. I've used the Next Page Flow and the Path Finder Report. However, both are limited on the branches and navigated pages on discovering this insight.

The hurdle I am facing is that there is little to no data showing a user's site navigation within the Full Path report. For instance,  the full path report of one of my entry pages shows a total of 5 visits over a four week span and when I generate a Next Page Flow Report on the same entry page and date range, Site Catalyst reports 34,217 path views. I know both these metrics are different from one another, but I don't imagine 5 visits covering a total of 34,217 views.

Has any one come across this issue before? Could this be a backend issue with my tracking or is it that I am placing too many filters within the Full Path report? (The filter I am only placing is the selected entry page with paths that cover the entire site.)

I'm new to Site Catalyst but have web analytics experience with GA and Coremetrics.

Any feedback will be much appreciated.

[Gigazelle · Accepted solution]

Full paths report gives the number of visits that had that exact path you specified, which was 5.

Next pages report gives the number of visits that contained that page in any path, which was 34K.

It's not a matter of them being wrong, but a manner of reporting different data based on the criteria you're giving each report. 

[jeremy_burns]

Gigazelle: Thanks for the response. I understand what you are saying, but I still think there may be an error with the report because I specified a selected entry page within the full paths report and then selected "Entire Site" for the showing paths containing field. Here's a screenshot of what I'm getting.

[img]FullPathError.jpg[/img]

Could it be that "entry page" within the criteria represents users who start off at that page once they land to the website? If so, then I can see why the data is so skewed.

[Gigazelle]

Correct. Entry page means that was the very first page of the visit. If it's not possible to get to that page via search engine or another common method to first arrive on your site, the only way that exact page could be the first page of the visit is if they let their visit expire (30+ minutes of inactivity) then click through to that page, or if they bookmark that page and return to it at a later time. 

[jeremy_burns]

Now I understand.

Thanks for explaining!