AW Stats vs Google Analytics

[johnshearer]

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

[kchandler]

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.

[SL_SEM]

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

[johnshearer]

Kyle do you mean a couple months ago as in February or so? I dont think the placement has changed since then eh?

[johnshearer]

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.

[johnshearer]

Thanks for the considered response Charles; good point about focusing on actual traffic increase vs. getting wrapped up in total accuracy.

[SL_SEM]

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.

[THB]

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.

[kchandler]

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