Google Analytics VS Alexa

Sometimes the stats in Alexa and Analytics give me very different information. Which one should I trust? and why?

 

google analytics and alexa is both differ in their own way like analytics gives you statistic of each hit for site while alexa gives traffic estimation as a whole

 

I would only trust Analytics, Alexa is too easy to manipulate

 

Alexa traffic comes from people who have the alexa toolbar/add on so depending on your market, it may not accurately represent your ranking.

 

I wouldn't have a go at Alexa, when people block JavaScript - Google Analytics will not be tracked. Both can only ever be fair estimations.

 

Google analytics data is more accurate than alexa because most of the sites are using analytics.

 

Are you sure that Analytics provides only "fair estimations"?

I now understand that Alexa can provide only rough data since it bases its calculations on the people who have the toolbar installed, but for Analytics, it should be pretty much 100% accurate since we have integrated its code on all our pages... right?

 

You are right ! It's a service from Google so it gives pure and accurate results.

 

I think I'll go for analytics like avatar33 said, because analytics code is integrated in the websites pages it should have more accuracy than alexa's results.

 

As it mentioned above go with analytics, alexa is not worthy to take care about.

 

Analytics and Alexa are not the same thing. Alexa guesses traffic and can only track people with the Alexa toolbar installed.

Analytics is tracking tool which tracks every visitor to your site, but can only do so if you install the javascript tags given to you on every page for accurate results.

Hope that makes sense!

 

Analytics is the one that is employed on your site and of course they directly get the statistics for your site. Alexa was just more on estimation, even not so accurate and unreliable, still helpful on looking to other site's traffic information.

 

For one of my projects difference is tremendous. Alexa says that my site attracts almost only Romanian visitors but Google Analytics says that only 2.3% come from Romania...

 

google is the best

 

Analytics all the way,alexa only gives an estimate number based on people that uses their toolbar.

 

Alexa bases their results on their toolbar users, but you can put the Alexa widget on your site to cover those who don't have the toolbar installed.

Analytics is a better representation of your visitors, but as previously stated, if Java is disabled on someones browser, it can skew the results.

If you look at your server logs, you will have the best snapshot of your site activity. Use these logs in conjunction with the two methods above, and you should have a pretty accurate picture of how you're doing.

 

I use Analytics and I have no reason at the moment to use Alexa for my stats. For me Analytics is more complete and accurate.

 

my nick on msn is "sana"

 

Google Analytics - is directly measured with a script that is installed on the website.

alexa - is based off of a spyware toolbar installed on peoples computers. Because alexa is spyware, its not reliable because not everyone has it installed.

 

The answer would be quite straight and simple after you would take a look at how alexa works..