Google Analytics: Different stats for date range vs single month?
-
I've been scratching my head, chin, and you name it over this one.
I have an advanced segment to remove bot traffic from my data. When I look at the Audience Overview data for a single month (let's say Aug). I am shown a session count.
No problems here, however If I set the date range to (January - August). The august monthly stats is incorrect, much lower. What this means is that, if I export a CSV report from Jan-Aug, the data is wrong compared to individually recording a month.
Anyone faced this? I've asked the question over at the Google Analytics technical section as well, but no answer
P.S I even used the 'control the number of sessions used to calculate this report' tool but no luck.
-
Google's pre-built filters are working fine for me (i.e. all sessions) and it's my bot filter when I view via a date range vs month only that is causing the confusion.
I got an answer from the google analytics technical page. There is a setting to exclude bot traffic, therefore avoiding the need to build custom segments.
You can do this for each profile so I've turned it on to test, let's see how my results turn out. If it removes the bot traffic automatically, then the date range wouldn't change. Here's how to do it:
Admin >> View Settings >> Bot Filtering (Click the Check Box) then the Save button. Done... no need for a dedicated segment.
-
I agree with Bendall that sampling is what is most likely causing your problem here. You may find this post useful: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1042498?hl=en-GB
I suspect that the reason that your sampled total closely matches the total of individually downloaded monthly data is because sampled data is Google's 'best guess' when the data in the date range becomes too large. This best guess is based on sound statistics, but ultimately there will be some variances. I've found these variances get bigger the larger your site and the larger your date range. Google do this to reduce load on their servers as crunching the numbers for large data sets can be very resource intense. You COULD upgrade to Google Analytics Premium which gives you un-sampled data as standard, but this is very expensive and only really suitably for large organisations.
There is no easy way round this I'm afraid. I'd suggest that you think about what level of data you are comfortably using - sampled data can still give you valuable insights / trends. Some are comfortable with using sampled data (I prefer now too). I believe there are some tools that allow you to download un-sampled data from Google Analytics via their API but I have not tried these.
-
I didn't know about this. I always thought the a data range would show the same data as the small range.
Strange thing is, If I note down each month's sessions individually and then add them up, they closely match the total session count my data range gives. Its just that my month data within the range that is wrong.
-
Are you sure the data in the larger date range is not being "Sampled". Always more dependable to add up smaller date ranges from my experience in the free version of GA, as if their is too much data to crunch it will take a sample and upscale it.
Regards
Ben
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
-
"index.htm" for all url's in google analytics
I don't have this issue with other wordpress websites, only this one website, and I don't know what's causing the issue: Google Analytics is adding an "index.htm" to every single page on the website. So it is tracking the pages, I see no errors - is it tracking the right page? When I click on the page link in a report, I naturally go to a "404 page not found" since the website address isn't "www.example.com/rewards/index.htm" - but instead the actual address would be:
Reporting & Analytics | | cceebar
"www.example.com/rewards/". I have navigated to View Settings in GA to insure "default page" is empty. Although adding anything else to this field does not effect the page url in analytics reports either. Could it be htaccess file - or a plugin effecting the htaccess file?_Cindy0 -
How do I track a primary domain and a subdomain as single site in Google Analytics?
Our website consists of a primary domain (marketing focused) and subdomain (ecommerce platform). The two sites look and function as one site even though they are using different technology. I would like to track the primary domain (example.com) and the subdomain (shop.example.com) as a single site in Google Analytics. The subdomain will be set up with GA ecommerce tracking as well. Can someone provide an example of the GA snippet that each would need?
Reporting & Analytics | | Evan340 -
Google Analytics
Looking at a client's analytics - one page doesn't seem to record 'average time on page' data (it just displays 0.00 despite it receiving traffic) This isn't an issue for the rest of the website's pages. Any idea? http://www.smilestyledental.co.uk/ppc/general-dentistry-at-smile-style.html thanks for any help!
Reporting & Analytics | | dentaldesign0 -
Testing IP Exclusion Filters in Google Analytics
(I hope I haven't missed something simple 😉 I have add IP exclusion filters in Google Analytics. What I haven't been able to determine is how to test to see if it is working. I'd imagine there would be a dip in traffic but if a site is low volume it might not even register. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | AUDigitalMarketing0 -
What is s.ytimg.com in google analytics?
My clients GA reports 273 visits from s.ytimg.com. I go to the site, it doesn't exist. I googled it, there were some code with s.ytimg.com in it, but nothing I could understand. Anybody have an idea where this comes from?
Reporting & Analytics | | endlessrange0 -
Is Google able to determine duplicate content every day/ month?
A while ago I talked to somebody who used to work for MSN a couple of years ago within their engineering department. We talked about a recent dip we had with one of our sites.We argued this could be caused by the large amount of duplicate content we have on this particular website (+80% of our site). Then he said, quoted: "Google seems only to be able to determine every couple of months instead of every day if the content is actually duplicate content". I clearly don't doubt that duplicate content is a ranking factor. But I would like to know you guys opinions about Google being only able to determine this every couple of X months instead of everyday. Have you seen or heard something similar?
Reporting & Analytics | | Martijn_Scheijbeler0 -
Google Analytics All Kinds of Messed Up
Anyone have their google analytics go straight crazy on Thursday, 8/11/2011? 30% increase in visits No increase in visitors Huge drop in pageviews and time site Higher bounce rate More return users
Reporting & Analytics | | ChrisKolmar0 -
Setting up Google Analytic Goals to a 3rd Party Site
I recently received help on a question I asked on SEOmoz but need additional clarification. I am trying to set up goals in Google Analytics for people who click on a “purchase botton” which sends them to PayPal. I created a Thank You page and tried to get PayPal to redirect to it, however, our customers only get to our site’s 404 page. Here is what I’ve done so far: Went into my PayPal account and turned the “Auto Return” to ‘on’ Under website payment preferences, I added the following URL http://www.teecycle.org/thank-youutm_nooverride1. (I formatted the URL this way because the person who provided me with help recommended using the format ?UTM_nooverride=1. However, our CMS system won’t allow “?” or “=”)
Reporting & Analytics | | EricVallee340