Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
AW Stats vs Google Analytics
-
Hey Moz Community,
I am looking to get opinions on the best practice for analytics/traffic analysis. From experience I know that AW Stats reads high and Google Analytics reads low for traffic for reason in this article http://www.smartz.com/blog/2009/01/23/analytic-confusion-%E2%80%93-awstats-vs-google-analytics/
It drives me a little nuts how far off both are for some pages. I have one article that shows 100 views (GA) and AW stats shows 5 times that number of views.
Any suggestions or systems you recommend? Thanks
-
I did a major overall on all my sites to the new tracking in July 2011. However, I'm not sure when the new tracking was released. Definitely in 2011.
-
Also you have to tell AW stats what types of file counts as a page view. For instance I had to be sure my IT guys told it to not count flash files as pageviews as the flash file we had on the home page at the time was doubling the numbers of views when someone hit the home page
-
Kyle do you mean a couple months ago as in February or so? I dont think the placement has changed since then eh?
-
As far as I can tell the tracker is placed properly..I think the diff is AW gives false counts for images loads as multiple page loads.
-
Thanks for the considered response Charles; good point about focusing on actual traffic increase vs. getting wrapped up in total accuracy.
-
Hands down I use GA much more than AW Stats.
AW Stats has it's place, but the segmentation of users, user defined variables, events, goal tracking, and e-commerce tracking all tied up with adwords data easily trumps AW Stats.
AW Stats is great for getting info on bots, 404 errors, bandwidth usage, and hits, but these are used more for diagnosis and less for business level decisions.
Also, the variations you are talking about between the two rarely matter unless you think the variation is due to large portions of your traffic not being tracked correctly by one or the other.
The reason why I say these variations don't matter is that both methods of tracking have their quirks, and what you are really using them for is to see the trending of the data.
As long as you know the data is as accurate as you can get it, and you know how/why you are getting the data you are getting, then that data becomes actionable based on the trends you see and not based on the explicit value of the number.
As an example lets say I see in GA 1,000 visitors this month, and 1,200 visitors next month, and I see in AW Stats 10,300 visitors and 12,500 visitors. I care less about the differences in the numbers in the systems and more about the 20% growth in that statistic. Considering I can find out the "why" easier and with more clarity in GA I usually don't even look at AW Stats for this type of data.
I also might take a look at AW stats when first setting up analytics to be sure it looks like key indicators are showing similar trends so I know I am not missing a huge chunk of the site or something similar.
-
Perhaps the GA code isn't executing in time? Do you have a slow loading page? Where is the GA tracking code placed within your page?
The numbers shouldn't be that far off, that's for sure.
-
I always go with what Adwords says in regards to clicks. That number will be recorded no matter what user level settings are. In regards to when someone navigates to your site there are many softwares and browser settings that can be done to defer or disable analytics tracking.
Edit: disregard my post - i miss read and thought you where talking about Adwords vs Analytics results not Analytics vs AWStats. THB brought up a good point in regards to load time. A couple months ago analytics came out with a new tracking code that goes in the of the document as well that way it gets called first rather than last.
Good luck! - Kyle
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to change domains in Google Analytics without losing the data
Hi there, We recently changed our domain from .COM to .NET so that all our subdomains from external pages matched. Right now in Google Console we have our new .NET website being tracked, but in GA we are still tracking .COM. It is also causing issues with MOZ crawling our site because of the .COM/.NET discrepancy. My question is what is the best way to change our Google Analytics from .COM to .NET without losing historical data and what considerations do we need to change before implementing this? Our team was concerned that just downloading the old data would be too vast and it we wouldn't be able to continue manipulating it dynamically in GA. Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | | cPanel-LLC.0 -
No-indexed pages are still showing up as landing pages in Google Analytics
Hello, My website is a local job board. I de-indexed all of the job listing pages on my site (anything that starts with http://www.localwisejobs.com/job/). When I search site:localwisejobs.com/job/, nothing shows up. So I think that means the pages are not being indexed. When I look in Google Analytics at Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Landing Pages, none of the job listing pages show up. But when I look at Acquisition > Channels > Organic and then click Landing Page as the primary dimension, the /job pages show up in there. Why am I seeing this discrepency in Organic Landing pages? And why would the /job pages be showing up as landing pages even though they aren't indexed?
Reporting & Analytics | | mztobias0 -
% Change - Google analytics - how to calculate?
Hi All,
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnPalmer
I have two dates with two different numbers I want to calculate the "% Change" like google analytics, The numbers of June 2015 - 127,931 sessions
The numbers of June 2014 - 90914 sessions please tell me what is the %Change. Best. J0 -
Can you track two Google Analytics Accounts on one site?
If you have a site that had an old analytics account and then implemented a new one is it possible to run tracking code that records to both accounts without causing your site or data issues? We are doing this so we don't loose data at any point - ideally it wouldn't have been split between the two but making one redundant isn't an option. Ideally we would have merged the data from both accounts and had one - however the research we have done points to this not being a possibility - unless one of you guys knows different? It would be great if anyone has experience on any this.. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | ChrisAllbones0 -
Whats 'Other' in Google Analytics (in Acquisition)
When i look in GA under Channels (under Acquisition) 'other' is listed What is 'other' ? I have been told its other unidentified channels as they did not allow 3rd party cookies or surfers were in anonymous/private mode. Other is usually organic traffic that couldn't be identified for the aformentioned reasons. This data is encrypted and available but it violates Google guidelines as they are not allowed to pass personal info//data to third parties so it is automatically filtered. But they are not 'Not Provided' (since that still shows under organic) but is usually/mainly some form of organic visits. Hence Seo can take credit for much of that traffic, is this correct ? Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
On google analytics what is Mozilla Compatible Agent under browser and OS?
On my Google Analytics (I know this is not SEOMOZ) I have a lot of visits from mozilla compatible agent with 100% bounce rate. Does anybody know what this is?
Reporting & Analytics | | essentialworld0 -
How to remove unwanted dynamic parameters from a URL in Google Analytics
Hi, Would really appreciate some help with this. I have been experimenting with RegEx to achieve this but as I’ve never used it before am currently failing miserably. We have conversion pages i need to set goals for that are formatted as below: https://www.domain.co.uk//Application_Form/(S(ewhbqp5cki0mppuzukunkqno))/enterCardDetails.aspx I need to remove the (s(xxx)) section from the URL as rather than one pages i currently have thousands of unique URL's. What’s catching me out is that as it’s not a URL parameter I can’t discount and as half way through can’t just do head matches etc to /entercarddetails Help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | Sarbs0 -
Google Analytics Admin account not allowing us to add other users?
Our Google Analytics Administrator account is not giving us access to the User Manager, and because of that we are unable to add users; have you ever ran in to a problem such as this, if so what was your solution. Thanks a Billion impressions, Vijay E2qE9.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | vijayvasu0