Google Analytics question

[Dana_W]

So, I use Google Analytics on my websites. On one of them, it is saying I had zero visitors today. But I posted a link to my newest blog post on Twitter earlier...and got five comments on the blog post...and a few comments from people on Twitter, who read the blog post but didn't leave a comment on the blog...

It was working up until now. What might be causing this?

[Tim Franklin]

It may take some time for the traffic to show up on the service, and or google is doing a weekend update,

I would check it in the AM to see if there is a record then.

[Dana_W]

That could be. Although it was this morning that the traffic would have gone there. Oh well, I'll check again tomorrow.

[sideserver]

Google analytics isn't 100% accurate, in my experience. Sometimes, there's a "lag time" where your visitors shows up only on the next day's count.

If you have cpanel hosting, you can check your real time stats with awstats - that seems to be a more accurate analytics tools as least in terms of visitor date and time.

[buckapple]

This happened to me earlier in the week on a blog I knew was getting traffic. After a day or so, I reloaded the code (losing previous data) and everything was back to normal the next day.


Gary

[Dana_W]

Hmm. I wonder if I should use something other than Google Analytics. When they do work, I love the information that they provide.

I'll go check my Cpanel and see if I can get the statistic from there; I have Bluehost.

[SolomonHuey]

Oh interesting that's good to know. I just implemented analytics into my sites for conversion tracking. Are there any good suggestions out there that can track conversions and is more consistent with data?

Originally Posted by Dana_W

Hmm. I wonder if I should use something other than Google Analytics. When they do work, I love the information that they provide.

I'll go check my Cpanel and see if I can get the statistic from there; I have Bluehost.

Dana,

Analytics can take anywhere from 24-48 hours to update.

But, it never hurts to use more than one tracking method.

Peace

[reapr]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

So, I use Google Analytics on my websites. On one of them, it is saying I had zero visitors today. But I posted a link to my newest blog post on Twitter earlier...and got five comments on the blog post...and a few comments from people on Twitter, who read the blog post but didn't leave a comment on the blog...

It was working up until now. What might be causing this?

It is not always 100% accurate but and can take at least a few hours or more to show data.

I usually use my cpanel stats if there appears to be a few discrepancies.

[Dana_W]

I'll have to start using cpanel stats. is there a good software program for tracking visitors, other than Google Analytics?

[Dana_W]

I checked again and it STILL says zero visitors for yesterday, even though people must have visited because they commented on my blog!!!

One thought - I linked directly to the blog post rather than the main page. It's a wordpress site. Would this affect anything?

[onlinemarketer]

try statcounter, but sometimes it takes time to update as they have a lot of clients subscribe to them, that goes thesame as analytics

[swiftdeal]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

One thought - I linked directly to the blog post rather than the main page. It's a wordpress site. Would this affect anything?

Dana

As long as you have the Analytics cod eon EVERY page you create within your blog, your visitors should be accounted for. If you only have the code on your HOME PAGE, that would explain why you have noticed this issue.

[JoseArmando]

Are you sure you've installed the code correctly?
Are you sure you don't have conflicting scripts on the site?

If you aren't satisfied with Analytics I recommend Woopra.

[johannes_nefischer]

hi dana

have you included the code in the wp theme?

you need to as analytics will not be able to track

if you need help on this just tell

johannes

[CodrutTurcanu]

I'd never gave up to Analytics.

The smartest thing you could do is this one instead --

Use cpanel traffic stats, or other tool in combination with Google's one.

Compare both versions and stick with the best one

[Dana_W]

I had someone else install Google Analytics for me - and it seemed to work up until a few days ago. At least I assume it worked, because it recorded dozens of visitors to the site every day, and when I added a new post and then tweeted about the new post, I would see a spike in visitors - which seems logical. When a friend of mine stumbled the site, I got about 145 visitors from Stumbleupon, so again, at the time it seemed to be recording things correctly.

I did switch themes about a week ago - perhaps that somehow messed things up? I really need to take a PHP course. In the meantime I will hit up one of my Wordpress-savvy friends to go look at the code and make sure that it's still working.

But it's good to know about Awstats as well, thank y'all.

[johannes_nefischer]

hi just has to add the tracking code of your analytic account into the new wp theme

cu

johannes

[swiftdeal]

Hi Dana

What's the URL of your blog? We can take a look to see if the Analytics code is there.

[Dana_W]

Niche Newsflash

Thanks, Roger, appreciate it!

So changing the theme means the code might not be installed any more? Drats. I wonder what else changing the theme might do or undo.

[johannes_nefischer]

hi dana

it depends - if you install the code direct into the theme than you have to change it everytime

you can use a wp plugin like
WordPress Google Analytics Plugin Xavisys

this will help you to have no problem with changing design

it seems that there is no tracking currently in the theme you use

johannes

[Dana_W]

Thanks for the plugin recommendation! How are you able to tell that there's no tracking currently in the theme?

Originally Posted by johannes_nefischer

hi dana

it depends - if you install the code direct into the theme than you have to change it everytime

you can use a wp plugin like
WordPress Google Analytics Plugin Xavisys

this will help you to have no problem with changing design

it seems that there is no tracking currently in the theme you use

johannes

[Tsnyder]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

Thanks for the plugin recommendation! How are you able to tell that there's no tracking currently in the theme?

Right click on the page and select "view page source"

I don't see the analytics code on your page.

Tsnyder

[swiftdeal]

Originally Posted by Tsnyder

Right click on the page and select "view page source"

I don't see the analytics code on your page.

Tsnyder

Nope, not there. Usually (as recommended by Google), the Analytics code would be at the end of each page code, before the </body> tag.

It's a small piece of script that sends the data back to Google HQ. Without it, no Analytics data will be collected.

[Dana_W]

Well, that would explain why there's no record of yesterdays' visitors. I'm glad I found this out now, rather than having that happen on a site that I'm trying to sell!

So as far as I can tell, when one changes Wordpress themes, there is the possibility that this will get rid of the Google Analytics code - which seems to hve happened here. I learn something new every day! I thought that when you changed themes, everything - all plugins, etc. - went with it.

[cypherslock]

An easy way to tell if GA is installed on a page is to get the GA extension for firefox