It says that my website had approx 100 impressions today, while my hosting webstats says approx 250 .. maybe i am mis-interpreting something... hmmm
Google Analytics is fairly good for tracking referrers and keywords but nothing else. If a firefox user has the "noscript" plugin installed, then it will not track with GA.
yeah i've also noticed that my analytics stats always fall shorter than my hosting stats. But it makes sense that google might not catch hits to images and other linked content. They don't catch the missing pages either
If you have the analytics code on all your website pages then yes it's very accurate. don't forget it's free
its accurate but only with the google keywords, other then that I don't think its that accurate. I noticed this a few times when I paid to advertise on another site, I was getting more clicks from it then google was saying I was, for some reason or another.
google analytics is not acurate i think, i am using in many of my site, but it is always wrong, it has compatibiliyt issues with all other browsers, only ie is ok with it. but it is still good and reporting gives you an idea about what is happening.
To me, the question is not accuracy. A better question is "Can Analytics provide the information needed for profitable actionable changes?" The answer is absolutely. You must take the time to learn how to read stats so that you can take action. Everyday, part of my job is to study analytics (Google) and propose changes to clients that end up delivering a higher ROI. From this perspective GA is the best, especially if you take the time to set goals and associated values.... What is a lead worth? Will answer... What is a web visit worth from different traffic sources? What are your pages worth? What is your conversion rate? How efficient is your sales funnel? I have some clients that think they know how to read stats and take action. Last week a client contacted me and said "we need to solve the 100% bounce rate in our CPC spend". So I took a look. The client went to All traffic sources>CPC (search)>sorted bounce rate from ascending to descending. There they were...100% bounce rate. OMG says the client!! What they client failed to see was there was only 1 single visit. That means 1 person visited the site and bounced. That is a perfect example of incorrect usage of stats. The longer the timeline and the larger the sampling the more accurately you can determine the actions needed to improve. E.g. If you had 200 visits with a 95% bounce rate, now we're talking basis for corrective action. The larger the sampling the more actionable. Analytics can really improve CPC spend, there is no doubt in my mind. Its integration with AdWords makes it unbeatable when you understand what KPIs to look at. Unfortunately not may people have figured this out yet, but they will. That's why it has become a full time job for me. Through practice and schooling I am able to improve ANY CPC campaign. When there is historical data it's even easier. As more of us discover ways to unleash the true power I am certain Anayltics will become the single most important element to website success and conversion. I will not even touch ECOM in this post, but that's where GA really shines IMO . Accuracy is pretty good! Certainly close enough to cash in !! H