Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : SEO / SEM Discussions : Can i trust in Google Analytics?

[Southprojects]

Hi there:

I have a small website that sell classroom courses. It is a small site but i don't have major complain.

www.example.com

However, Google Analytics says that my visits are 20 top per day, this include me (and may be other member of the staff) and may be some robots, however, im still selling from time to time some courses. Is it so high the success ratio (in comparison with the number of visitors) or Google Analytics is, some that, faulty?


btw, i am using cloudflare.

[handsonwebhosting]

You should be able to trust the Google Analytics output. I use it on a number of sites and it's pretty accurate for what we see.

Do you have any other type of logging software on your server? Maybe you can run a comparison of your Apache Logs and see just how many visitors from separate IPs you get to the site and cross compare that information?

I've not had an issue with the data being inconsistent on a number of blogs that I operate.

[e-hoster]

I did some comparisons between all the major stats systems and found Google Analytics to be one of the most accurate. However it was a relatively small amount of research and open to inaccuracy.

[philipdaniel]

Earlier I was using statcounter that allows to set returning visitors, unique visitors times and many other setting, after that I used Google Analytics, it was showing very less number of traffic but it was accurate. We can trust on it.

[FreeDomainWebHosting]

If you have some time try installing piwik and compare with google analytics.

[dale]

IIRC, Google Analytics assimilated Urchin, which was very accurate.

[iDeq]

I use Google Analytics on some sites but find it a bit 'too much information' for my needs and don't understand all of it tbh, but I also use statcounter(.com), I find it much easier to understand and it gives visit by visit detailed info like location, browser etc. and it's ideal for small traffic sites, it tells me much more at a glance than GA ever could. As for you seeing your own visits though you can add your IP(s) to both programs so it ignores your visits so you don't see them, worth doing imo. There's nothing wrong with having both though, you can compare results then and see which you like best.

[AHFBWEB]

GA does NOT include most spider visits.

[ZW-Brooke]

I always feel that Google Analytics is missing some of my traffic-- and certainly doesn't log all of our ecommerce stuff correctly. Also have to keep in mind that some of the information (especially ecommerce data) is delayed.

[smarthide]

Originally Posted by ZW-Brooke

I always feel that Google Analytics is missing some of my traffic-- and certainly doesn't log all of our ecommerce stuff correctly. Also have to keep in mind that some of the information (especially ecommerce data) is delayed.

Agree, for ecomerce it's better to use special tools like comscore.

[ZNHosting]

It is best to have at least two traffic counter for your website and compare them. Best is to have Google Analytics, at least to let Google know your website and get indexed regularly.

[outshinesol]

Google analytic is an wonderful tool you don't need to think a lot but if you are looking to build an analytic tools against of Google then you may go with more research. Anyway you can believe the data of analytic tool. Even there is other option stat counter for you

[Southprojects]

Right now, i am doing a simple log file (i don't want to use apache's log) and apparently Google Analytics is close to the reality.

So:
1) im having so few visitors.
2) but i'm lucky that, from the few ones, most are hit.

[admin0]

You can give PIWIK a try, installing and running side by side with google analytics.

[Gbusiness]

GA is less and less transparent untill you get the pro version at 100000 $ / year. However I recommend to cross datas with seomoz, and merge your GA account with your GWT account