How Accurate Is Google Analytics Regarding Web Traffic?

Hi,

According to Google Analytics my site is getting about 450 unique visits per day. According to my web host (1&1) stats the site is getting aroudn 1500 unique visits per day.

Any idea which would be the most reliable? Any other more accurate ways of finding out my site traffic?

My site is http://www.paid2review.co.uk


Thanks for any help.

 

Analytics is pretty good but it's not perfect, alot of ad blocking software also blocks the Analytics tracking code which is probably why you're seeing such low numbers from google compared to your web host, Analytics also requires javascript to be enabled on users browsers to track them i'd rely more on your web host stats

 

Web host stats is never accurate, I usually divide by 2 to have more or less actual data.

 

I tend to find that Google Analytics is reporting 1/3 of the web hosts traffic so I go inbetween and call 1/2 to 2/3 of the webhots traffic about right.

 

You gotta analize both of reports and realize whats correct, because Analytics has issues but Awstats etc got them also...

 

its really useful

 

I depend more on my cpanel stats which is more accurate than the analytics tools, which always give lesser values...

 

I think Google Analytics is quite accurate. Anyway, you can try Statcounter

 

I add AWStats and Analytics stats and divide by two (for calculating unique visitors).

 

I see... Now i know why my statcounter and analytics didn't match.

 

server based statistics do not seperate spiders from the visits, however google analytics does.

I have lots of sites using GA, and statcounter and a few others.... Google analytics is 99.99% accurate. Any other package has a lot more errors and you should really only pay attention to GA.

If you start looking at AWSTATS and other server log apps, you will have to manually go through and disclude all of the non human browser stats, ie WA spiders, G spiders, MSN spiders, etc. etc.

BASICALLY google analytics is the way forward. Ignore everyone else.

 

You will never get 100% accuracy... but you can understand trends etc which is really important. So I wouldnt worry too much on getting the exact figures... but its interpretting them and collating them - you will always get good trends so I would work with that whilst you are fine tuning.

 

Google analytics is a fairly nice tool to use, I also noticed it shows relatively low results than other counters but for me, its still helpful. Maybe it just counts the unique visits.

 

Your webhost stat counter will track all visitors to all pages, usually you as well when you look at your site.

Google Analytics will only track the pages you put the code on.