Hi I seriously doubt google analytics giving accurate results on user visits. here is the case, I found there were X visits on my site from X keyword. I clicked that keyword to see the visit statistics. It shows the user stayed 0:00:00 minutes, what does that mean? The moment user reaches to my site, it would take at least few seconds to see the page and leave. Why google shows 0 seconds in statistics? I guess google counts a hit even if the user has not clicked my site but my site appeared in result page for certain keyword. What tool I shall use for exact results?
For the most part, yes. Google has by FAR the best web traffic software that is free, it defintely beats out sitemeter. Google Analytics is very accurate for stats coming from their search engine traffic to your website.
I will Prefer to Use Statcounter , very good Features and very good system with Accuracy. Thanks John
When you see "the user stayed 0:00:00 minutes", that means that it was a bounce. The user may have loaded the page, but they did not browse through your site so Google could not calculate the "time spent" on your site. In order to calculate time spent, Google needs two points of data. Bounces only give one point of data. In regards to the other suggestions to pair with Google, I would suggest GoStats. It's my baby I welcome those who are using other stats programs to also try out GoStats for a week; you will be very happy that you did
My google analytics data is very different from my awstats. Awstats shows much higher traffic than google analytics
This could be because alot of users use NoScript plugin from firefox so the google analyctics script wouldn't be executed and google wouldn't get any data back from that user.
The NoScript is actually a small reason - the larger reasons are: -load times (slow page load times - GA might not load) -bots and spammers - they do not count on GA but do on awstats -tracking code must be installed on all pages - awstats collects all pages by default (plus images) while GA needs to be installed and doesn't track images and files.
Not exactly. Being on the host server will only allow you to track more things like bandwidth, images, robots, etc. Your numbers of true visitors will not be accurate based on serverside stats alone.
The accuracy of Google Analytics is not 100%, that is accepted but still its a good tool to measure near accurate results. I would prefer using state counter and analytics both to compare the results.
The most accurate way to track stats is to use a combination of server side stats as well as a third party tracker (or multiple trackers). Some of the above mentioned trackers are not fully accurate on the unique visitors side because of the nature of their tracking systems. GoStats does provide more accurate information because it does not rely soley on cookies for tracking unique visitors. In any case, be sure to have your third party tracker installed on all pages to most accurate results.