Which is ACCURATE: Awstats, Google Analytics, Statpress, Statcounter or Other?

I'm not looking for the best in terms of features and all of that. All of that doesn't do me any bit of good if the data collected is not accurate. I'm a WordPress kind of woman. What I mean is I like WordPress and all of my sites are built using WordPress. I am using three different sources to collect data about my traffic and they all display different results. And I don't know about you, but that is annoying to me . The question is, which one is more accurate than the other? In your experience, based on the ones I gave in the poll which one provides the most accurate data collected? If other, please post on this thread what other one has proven to you to be accurate above all others. Remember, I'm looking for which one has the best accurate data (not features).

Thank you.

 

Google Analytics, without a doubt

 

Statpress all the way

 

I'm a fan of Google Analytics. AWStats is inaccurate - for example it counts page views even if someone hasn't loaded the entire page. No system is 100% accurate though, and there are always discrepancies.

 

Don't think you are ever going to find one that is 100% "accurate", I have tried them all and tested them against each other.

We chose to use Google because of ease of use and implementation. Some will say server logs are more accurate, but the best thing you can do is stay with one measurement source and let be your only metric.

 

google analyics seems to be the best for me

 

Most accurate stat analyzers..

Google Analytics
http://www.w3counter.com/ by Dan Grossman of SP
http://addfreestat.com/

Counters liks awstat, webalizer are not accurate...

 

I can say for sure that awsats is NOT accurate. I use Google Analytics, but I don't know about Statpress and Statcounter.

 

Google Analytics is where it's at. Get on board.

 

Then use only one and you won't get angry , most people use (i either) google analytics so it must be accurate.

 

Are the reasons some are choosing Google because they hadn't tried the others? If you have tried the others, how do you make the distinction what is giving you the most accurate data? In other words, how do you know Google, StatPress or other are accurate? What are ways to test its accuracy?

 

Doh, I voted for awstats - but meant GA.

My experience is that Google Analytics is the most accurate one.

 

I'm on the same ship as you. However, I just use Google Analytics and Statcounter on my site. They do show different data and I don't know which one is more accurate. I hope someone can point out here why these counters are not delivering the same results.

 

piwik is an opensource real time analytics. this really provide real time stats as to my experience. get it in piwik.org/

 

Any stats program that parses server log files is going to be more accurate than google analytics or any other 3rd party tool. Awstats uses server logs. Every time your server sends out a file, it will log it in your access log. By parsing that file you can get 100% accurate numbers.

If you're interested in accurate traffic data, stick to server logs. That is the ONLY way.

 

From what I can see aw stats is more accurate on search phrases and a few other things that happen on site. GA uses java script ... how many people have that turned off! GA supplies more usable data. I am looking at other solutions. GA owns my data and it is not real time.
I don't know if some posters were stating they thought their choice was more accurate or it was just a personal preference. All but one of my sites are based on WP.

This is the solution I am looking at ... real time and free amd the data is mine!

This link seems to discuss the advantages of different types of programs. If using a java based application is true about affecting page load times and Caffiene is going to take this issue into consideration you may want to consider a server log based program!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

 

statebrain work for me

 

Google analytics is one of the best. I use awstats as provided by cpanel. Makes it easy.

 

Google Analytics is good. MINT is the best I've EVER used. And I recommend it 100%.

 

Agree. RAW server logs is the most accurate. Use a log file analyser like AWStats to get this insight.