Google analytics vs Webmaster tools data

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

Which is more accurate WT or GA data ?

Since GA reporting a KW (thats very recently fallen from page 1 to 3 hence looking into data to find the cause) in the Organic part of Search tab as having generated just 1 visitor over a month (hence presuming fall could be due to low visits from a page 1 result) whilst under Search Engine Optimisation tab (data sourced from WT i think) its reporting 5 click thrus from 150 impressions over same period resulting in a quite good 3.33% CTR (hence wouldn't expect to be the cause of a fall) and what i would have thought GA would report as 5 visits instead of the 1 they do report !?

The reason im looking for answer in the data is because no on-page has changed and still scoring a grade A and off page metrics have all improved across the board (apart from small drop in majseo's Trust Flow) such as increased links, RD, Citation Flow, Ref Subnets etc etc etc

Cheers

Dan

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks Guillermo

[guillermoga]

Yes, only organic search results appears

[Dan-Lawrence]

Sorry if this is obvious but im just checking:

In the search engine optimisation tab of google analytics i take it that the queries and other info are solely in regard to organic search ?  

Im sure thats so but just double checking ??

cheers

dan

[guillermoga]

Unfortunately, I don't think you are able to do that.

I found this link that it might help you a little bit more. See under "Discrepancies in Clicks and Visits":

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034383?hl=en

It's not specifically about Webmaster Tools but it can help you understand this miscorrelation even deeper. I've never been able to equal these numbers but I did manage to reduce the discrepancies to the minimum.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Do you know if its possible to look at the instances of the click thrus in GA search engine optimisation tab ? for me it doesnt let me select the keyword to see a line graph of instances, if i could see it then i would be able to correlate the click thrus with the day of the one visit hopefully and hence conclude that the 5 clicks refer to the one visit.

[guillermoga]

From my experience this is probably the case. I saw this miscorrelation a few times but never differing in very high numbers. Also, it could be the case that your GA tracking code is not inside your tag. Is that possible?

I had several clients that were placing the tracking code at the end of the tag.  They've all missed visitors that click quickly through pages on their site before the Google Analytics tracking code executes.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi Guillermo

Thanks for your comments

So are you saying that 5 click thrus being reported by webmaster tools is most likely to be just the one visit ? since GA is showing only 1 visit

Cheers

Dan

[guillermoga]

Hi Dan!

Google Analytics tracks visitors using cookies, not IP addresses. This way, if an impression of your site is clicked more than once in one session (less than 30 minutes) by the same user, it will still count as one visitor for GA.

Hope that helps.