Archive for February, 2008
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Problems with Google Analytics Stats?
I recently heard from Dean that some clients noticed that their statistics were lower using Google Analytics vs. their normal server-based analytics such as Webtrends and Nettracker. I asked several people who might be able to answer the reason but I could just hear “please let me know if you find the answer” or “that was what I was wondering about”….. Anyway, I found the answer and thought it might be useful for everyone especially for consultants. In fact, the answer was easily found on the Google website- Google Analytics Help Centre!
And today is the New Year’s Day in many Asian countries including China, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and many more. Wish you the happy new year of the rat, especially to someone who was born in the years of the rat, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1960….(I won’t say who they are..=p)
Ok, here is the answer;
Why does Google Analytics report values that are different from some other web analytics solutions? Different web analytics products may use a variety of methods to track visits to your website. Therefore, it is normal to see discrepancies between reports created by various products. However, we generally believe that the best way to think of metrics across different web analytics programmes is to think in terms of trends, as opposed to numbers by themselves. One example is to compare related metrics, such as page views (e.g. 15% of traffic went to page x). In addition, the comparison of data over time could be valuable; information such as “conversions increased by 20% over the past 3 months,” or “our site gained 10% more page views in the month of March.” In most cases, you will notice that different analytics solutions, though different in numbers, will generally depict the same trends.While we are not able to provide side-by-side comparisons of Google Analytics with other web tracking solutions, the following list points out some of the main reasons why your actual numbers may differ:
- Terminology: The terminology used in one programme may not mean the same thing or may not be measured in the same way as in another programme. Page views are generally similar between vendors; however, it is much more difficult to define a visit or a visitor. In Analytics, if a user comes to your site twice within thirty minutes without closing his/her browser, it will be registered as one visit. Other web analytics solutions may treat this behaviour as two visits, depending on their definitions.
- Tracking methods: There are two main methods of tracking activity: cookie-based and IP + User Agent.
- Cookie-based tracking relies on a browser setting the cookie. If cookies are disabled, cookie-based analytics programmes (such as Google Analytics) will not count the visit. This would exclude, for example, hits from a robot or spider.
- IP + User Agent tracking typically uses log file analysis for its data. This may report higher numbers than reported by cookie-based tracking because of dynamically assigned IP addresses and spider and robot visits.
- First-party vs. third-party cookies: Even among cookie-based tracking solutions, there is a difference between first-party and third-party cookies. Because third-party cookies are set by a source other than the website being visited, they are often blocked by browsers and security software. Google Analytics uses first-party cookies.
- Third-party images: Some browsers give users the option to disable images that are requested from domains other than the current page. Disabling such images will prevent data from being sent to Google Analytics.
- Filters/settings: Many web analytics solutions provide dat_ filters. Differences in the way that filters are applied, or creating different filtering altogether, can drastically affect the data in your reports
- Time zone differences: If your Web analytics solutions group data using different time zones, your daily or hourly data will be affected.
- Visitor browser preferences: Visitors must have JavaScript, images and cookies enabled in their browsers in order for Analytics to report their visit. Depending on their method of collecting data, other analytics solutions may still register these visitors.
- Caching: Google Analytics directly calls Google’s servers each time that a page is visited, even if the page has been cached. Other analytics solutions may not record an additional visit if the page is pulled from a user’s or server’s cache.
