Does Google Analytics suck?

by markdsullivan

Posted: 16 years ago 19 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

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

steve-wilkins 16 years ago

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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SurviveUnemployment 16 years ago

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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Jhf14 16 years ago

I dont think any single one of those traffic reporting tools is 100% accurate... ive had troubles with analytics too.
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davtom 16 years ago

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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euhlir 16 years ago

Every traffic report has different outputs. AWstats shows tons of traffic, while analytics may show nothing.
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DogScout 16 years ago

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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DogScout 16 years ago

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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automated1 16 years ago

Yes you're right I heard about google which what you said is impossible.
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- DogScout 16 years ago
  
  Google isn't the only one. Sitepoint says I get 90,000 visitors a month and 6.38 page views each and my host says 50,000 a month and 11.57 page views a visitor.
  
  Based on Downloads and 3 hosts over 5 years, I am guessing my host is closest to reality.
  
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mark z 16 years ago

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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robfoster Banned 16 years ago

[DELETED]

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- theultimate1 16 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by robfoster
  
  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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Debbie Songster 16 years ago

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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PVReymond 16 years ago

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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actionplanbiz 16 years ago

works for me.. pretty consistent too
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badfun 16 years ago

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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InternetMarketingIQ 16 years ago

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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- eidorian 16 years ago
  
  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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