Was just wondering if anybody would know why my Google analytics shows 450,000 page views but my Awstats shows 1,600,000. How could there be so much difference? My site is a proxy and I have the analytics code on the home page and the proxified page so it should be tracking the whole site.
There are lots of reasons. Awstats parses server logs so it will ALWAYS be more accurate. Make sure you're looking at the "pages" column in awstats and not hits. That's the closest measure of pageviews you're going to get. Awstats will also keep track of unique visitors much better than GA. GA is handy to use for marketing purposes but don't ever count on it to give you an accurate representation of how much traffic you're getting. Also, consider using something like Piwik - http://www.piwik.org/ - which is an open source alternative to Google Analytics. It's just as good and you get to keep your data private rather than letting it be assimilated by Google.
Google has a problem with privacy, so I opt-out on using theirs. Piwik is good as someone already recommended.
One more thing Awstats count bot visits too in overall count while Google Anlytics only count real Unique visitors only! So you always get different results with Google Analytics then other Traffic Analytics.
There are two main technological approaches to collecting web analytics data. The first method, logfile analysis (used by awstats), reads the logfiles in which the web server records all its transactions. The second method, page tagging (google analytics), uses JavaScript on each page to notify a third-party server when a page is rendered by a web browser. the differences you see between the two solutions is due to two main factors: -file caching: if a returning visitor has file caching enabled on his web browser (usually it is the case) the request for the file he already viewed will not be sent to the web server, and he will view a local copy, so awstat will not detect multiple visits some times. -Page tagging relies on the client (visitor) browser voluntarily providing the analytical information requested. Some browsers disable so me data collection for security reasons. The main advantages of logfile analysis are the fact that the data is already logged by your webserver. every transaction is recorded by the webserver reguardless of the visitors browser. and this data is on your server directly in standard format so you don't rely on a third party server. Anoher advantage is the fact that logfiles provides information about visits from search engine spiders and bots, failed requests which is really important if you want to optimize your website. The main advantages of pagetagging is that the javascript is called every time the page is loaded so you can track precisely your visitors behaviors even if they are loading the web pages locally from their cache. it can also report on events which do not involve a request to the web server (flash action script...). Page tagging is adequate if you run ebusiness websites, or if you need to track your visitors behavior.
Also, Google is a beacon based service that depends on JavaScript. AW Stats reads the server logs. Google will leave out popular bots, and it will only send if the visitor accepts JavaScript. I don't waste time with server logs anymore because they don't show accurate data. I figure I only want to look at people that know how to use the internet and thus allow JavaScript.
Yep who needs to know about bot visits, only bono fidi visitors are important when looking at your stats
Since your IP and computer info can be beamed into Google’s hands as soon as you hit ‘Submit’ on your bitchin post (about Google of course ) at a forum or blog that uses Google Analytics, I’d say this isn’t such a bad idea after all. ... Prevent Google Analytics from tracking your visit...