Google analytics not accurate?

I started to use google analytics for most of my websites, and so far I think that it doesnt show all the visitors that I'm receiving.

For example my server stats, is showing that I'm getting around 150 visits/day, but google analytics only shows around 50.

The same thing is happening with other websites, where I use PPC to drive traffic, and I'm sending in around 300 clicks and I'm seing less than 50 at google analytics.

Is this normal? Should I use another counter to track my visitors?

 

Google analytics does not count few spiders & non-browser visitors,that could be one of the reason that you see those differences, you can try out Webanalyzer & statcounter as well.

 

Also double check that the analytics code is on the bottom of ALL pages.

 

Also, Analytics uses javascript, which can be blocked by browsers and the various addons.

This throws off your results. The best tool would be server based, so you may want to check to see what, if anything, your host has available.

 

Google Analytics is pretty accurate- IMO.

I had it on a few sites and recently switched to Coremetrics (a high-end paid solution). The Google stats match Coremetrics so....

Like Qryztufre said, just make sure you have each page tagged correctly.

 

Google Analytics is probably as good as any out there, but it's not without its problems.

Just take what you see 'with a grain of salt' because it's not perfect.

 

google analytics code is on the bottom of the page so if a visitor click on another link before the page is 100% downloaded then that click is not counted in google analytics so if you cut and paste that code on the top most part of your web than al your clicks count but that makes your web little bit slow

 

I have the same problem with my reports, my Cpanel stats show usually double what google reports.

 

No traffic measurement solution will be absolutely accurate. But absolute numbers are not important.

What they ARE good for is looking at trends and ratios.

Trends are when a certain page on your site grows until it is getting 20% of all your traffic, you can track it's progress and figure out what else has changed to cause that.

Ratios are things like what percentage of people added items to the shopping cart but didn't go to the checkout ? What percentage started the chekout but didn't finish ?

These are the important things, and Google analytics can track them quite well.

 

Google Analytics is more strict and specific with certain visitors it counts, which makes it a more reliable source anyways. Also, it uses Javascript. If someone hits the stop button before your page finishes loading, and the Google Analytics code doesn't load, it cannot track that visitor. So people don't hit the stop button, make sure your site loads quickly and has no errors.

 

Google analytics is accurate with my stats as well.

Just make sure your visitors have jscript turned on.

or possibly there would be no cookie and they will not be counted.

 

Oh nice, how do you like it?

Much better then analytics?

 

yes you are quite right

also i've faced this problem,so we have started trackyourvisitor.com service

and its free for website analytics report

thanks

 

Mine is on the top of each page... and it match my server stats very well...

 

Yes, It's not accurate really

 

Ive come across this thread, as ive found good anaylatics to be very inaccurate... i have different trackers set up on my site, and they all report alot more visitors than google.. google says about 250 a day, as my other trackers are detecting around 700 per day.. thats quite a long margin out... and im sure that 700 is more correct as the site is very popular... think google need to take a look into this..

 

We use analytics just for watching trends, we also have some inbuilt stats as an add on to our website which gives more accurate sales data. We find analytics misses about 10% of sales, but its fairly consistent in missing about 10% so the general trend is pretty accurate. I find it very useful for analysing ppc vs organic traffic conversions, top landing pages and exit pages. The ecommerce side of it i prefer using our built in stats as they take the data direct from our database so can't be more acccurate!

 

now i use yahoo analitics, its more accurate and real time. ofcourse friendly, at least for me ;-)

 

Google analytics sucks when it comes to accuracy. That's why I use a combo of AwStats, Google Analytics, and my own internal system that i designed.

 

I think that using a mix is also good, as that'll certainly give you the best rounded stats.

Ever consider tweaking out your own internal system and getting it on the market (maybe with instructions on how best to use it with other systems)?