Does Google Analytics suck?

19 replies
I've been using analytics for a couple years now and it usually shows the referring sites that sent me traffic. But for one of my newer sites, all it reports is direct traffic.

And lately, its been reporting less traffic than I am getting signups... so I don't know wtf is wrong with Google Analytics but something's seriously screwed up.

Has anyone encountered problems like this?

Thanks,

Mark
#analytics #google
  • Profile picture of the author steve-wilkins
    I have been using google analytics for 2 years now and the data it sends back is always way different to the data I collect from my web host control panel and various other places.

    For example on Sunday google analytics reported 79 unique visitors to my blog that day where as all other resources reported que 236 unique visitors. Something seems off with GA for me.

    Just my thoughts!

    Steve.
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  • For one thing it doesn't count people who have javascript disabled or ad-blocking software.

    I only use it to check the bounce rate.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jhf14
    I dont think any single one of those traffic reporting tools is 100% accurate... ive had troubles with analytics too.
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  • Profile picture of the author davtom
    I find google analytics so-so... An alternative that is up-and-coming is piwik from piwik.org. You host that yourself, so (a) it doesn't cost you anything extra; (b) Google aren't automatically getting their hands on your user's information; (c) the information is pretty much instant, whereas with Google it is delayed.

    You can also see the source code, so if you're a coder, you can expand it if you need to.
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    I have a site that 3 other services claim gets 50k a month. Goggle says 500 a day. Dunno who is right, Google or the other three. if Goggle, the 500 people that come are pigs.

    (I sent 1,000 one day using Tweeter to see. Bit.ly said 1.000 went to the site. Google said 500 did, who knows.)
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    At the end of October, Google said my October bounce rate was 60% for the month on the 29th. on the 30th it said I had 500 visitors that day and my bounce rate was 27%. Statistically, that is impossible.
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  • Profile picture of the author automated1
    Yes you're right I heard about google which what you said is impossible.
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  • Profile picture of the author mark z
    Same as for many other areas I found useful to have several sources for analytics too.
    Generally speaking, none of those I use is perfect. Data "dance" way too often. But, until I found single one reliable tool for statistic purposes, I have to compare stats from all valuable tools in my arsenal.
    And GA is one of them for sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author robfoster
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author theultimate1
      Originally Posted by robfoster View Post

      If you compare it with woopra and some other analytics program like mint, then it is true that analytics is not good enough anymore.
      The Age of Analytics, in all reality, is still being conceptualised. We haven't seen anything yet; and Web Analytics at that, is going to go places in the coming years.

      So, let's hope that Google will rapidly develop Google Analytics in a more professional way, in the coming years.
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      If Content Is Your King, Then This GhostRider.. err.. GhostWriter Is Your Knight!
      My Sample Articles
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  • Profile picture of the author Debbie Songster
    I just recently joined on with Web Analytics in Real Time | Clicky
    I rarely look at Google analytics anymore.

    If you have Wordpress, the GetClicky plugin collects your data, shows you the results in real time and shows it on your WP dashboard
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    Getting back in the grove after taking a year off following a family tragedy.

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  • Profile picture of the author PVReymond
    Yes, the results aren't that accurate but they can give you an idea about what is going on in your sites.

    Of course there are other services that you can use to compare the results and draw a conclusion.

    Thanks,
    ^PV Reymond
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  • Profile picture of the author badfun
    I also noticed a lot of direct traffic. For instance, one day recently I got a big spike in traffic. Tried to figure out why and where it came from, but Google just showed direct traffic. Did a whole bunch of people suddenly decide to type in my site's URL? I doubt it. But I never did find out where they came from.
    brent
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  • These tools aren't really designed for you they are designed for Google to collect data. As such they don't really care if it's working that great as long as people keep using it. They only care about the data they are receiving. So the servers go down a few hours and things don't get tracked... what is their incentive to care? None until people abandon ship and that isn't happening.
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    • Profile picture of the author eidorian
      I heard many people made comments on why we should not use Google Analytics. As InternetMarketingIQ mentioned, they only care about the data they are receiving from this service. If you install Google analytics, they have full view of your website traffic. They can use the data to determine the quality of your site and it will affect your ranking in the search engine.

      I have read articles on people performing test to see whether GA affect their ranking. Their conclusion was it does. Anyone got any experience to share?
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