Which is mre reliable: Google Analytics vs AWStats?

I currently have both AWStats and Google Analytics tracking my traffic, however, they both are reporting rather drastically different data. AWstats reports my site as receiving twice as many unique visitors per day as Google Analytics. Which numbers should I be trusting? (most other values seem to be in sync besides unique visitors)

 

Hmmm.. maybe google analytics has more up to date info on which ip's are bots? I can't really explain that.

Edit: Do your pages take a long time to load? If you have the GA javascript at the bottom, your visitors might not be downloading it, therefore google doesn't count them.

 

Hmm that might be a possibility. The actual page loads very fast once the connection is established but sometimes making that connection takes a while and the GA code is the very last thing on the page.

 

For me, I prefer google analytics because its exact.

 

I use a completely different system - it's called "GoingUp". You can try googling it.

Gives amazing stats along with other information. Worth a look in my opinion.

 

Google Analytic by far and away, or Urchin (another google product). Some ppl will tell you to put your code on the bottom, some on the top (for GA). I prefer putting it at the top b/c it gets loaded quicker.

 

That doesn't make sense. GA script will load at the same speed regardless of where you put it. However, if you put it at the top, it will load before your page, and if you put it at the bottom, it will load after your page.

 

Google Analytic is best and it provides much accurate data compared to all other services. Also, I would highly recommend Goingup (www.Goingup.com). Paid version has more features compared to free version. But both version provides detailed stats and are very accurate.

 

sorry mate.. it seems as i disagree with most in here and i have taken an analytics course (paid by my company). The most accurate logs are any that will read directly off your server and not a 3rd party tracking system such as GA. Basically everytime a visitor goes to your site APACHE will store this information in log files which later AWSTATS reads off. Meaning AWSTATS are almost the most accurate besides you reading your webserver logs personally.

Google and most 3rd party tracking will usually rely on cookies that they write to each user who visits your site. In the particular case of analytics they rely on 2 things. First that the user who is browsing has javascript enabled and secondly that the user fully loads the page (or at least far enough until the analytics code is loaded).

Analytics has a much more valuable use than most traffic stats such as tracking adwords campaings, conversions either paid or organic, funnel system. These are extremely valuable tools in analysing a site but when it comes down to numbers regarding number of visits or page views nothing better than a system that will read your log files such as AWSTATS.

Sorry for the long post and hope it was useful.

 

The stats generated from the web server logs are perfect. Hence, AwStats, SmarterStats, etc stat providers may serve better statistics.

 

Yes ... I appreciate your suggestions... I have learned many things from this... Can you plse share any URL. where i can learn more about this...!
By the way thanks for a nice suggestion...

 

Yes, google analytics doesn't show every visitors but it got many features and that's why people use it

 

Hello.

Here you have a tutorial that will make things clear for you.

Web tracking tutorial

Good luck!

 

Each one has it's pros and cons, so you should use both.

If you're looking strictly at number of visits to your webpage then you should be looking at Awstats which is MUCH more accurate than Google Analytics when counting number of visits.

Awstats is also 100% live data. You should have an "Update Now" link at the top of your Awstats page and if you don't, just ask your web host to add it for you.

 

I think google analytics is good traffic analysis tool

 

Wow, thanks fabriciogr. That clears up some of the questions/issues I posted re: GA. I suspected that it can only register visitors who fully load the GA script. I'm pretty sure quite a bit don't thus GA is pretty useless IMO. So I take it wordpress plugins are preferable because they read directly from the server? My Cystats plugin does show more visits per day than GA but it has some major issues with breaking down the traffic sources.

 

I would go with google, more trustable than what servers sometime preceed as unique.

 

I wouldn't be so sure. It depends on your hosting company's policy on updating statistics. I understand that you are talking about Awstats as a service provided by your web host and not as a program installed by yourself, in which case things are different.

 

my vote also goes to google analytics

 

Well First of all guys frankly speaking awstats will be full stats it reads from server logs so everything is tracked.. Analytics is javascript based so if javascript is disabled it wont count.. mostly its always enabled..

Awstats offcourse will be faster than analytics as its on ur own server