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Different Stats

by Trevor
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've got a Wordpress website, which is hosted on Hostgator. When I login into my Hostgator account and view the Awstats statistics for the site, the numbers are different than what I get in Google Analytics. For example, the number of UVs yesterday is almost 4 times higher in Awstats than in Analytics.

How come this is so? And which stats should I trust?

Thanks!
#analytics #awstats #google #hostgator #stats
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi Tekamolo,

    Those two analytic programs track different things in different ways, you should trust both. You just need to understand the difference in what is being tracked by those programs.

    Unique visits isn't the same as unique visitors. One unique visitor could have dozens of unique visits. A "visit" is a session and a "visitor" is a user that could have many independent visits.

    One program tracks all visits, including visits by robot programs, and the other program track unique visitors and excludes visits by bots. Those are two different metrics and the numbers should be different.
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    • Profile picture of the author Trevor
      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

      Hi Tekamolo,

      Those two analytic programs track different things in different ways, you should trust both. You just need to understand the difference in what is being tracked by those programs.

      Unique visits isn't the same as unique visitors. One unique visitor could have dozens of unique visits. A "visit" is a session and a "visitor" is a user that could have many independent visits.

      One program tracks all visits, including visits by robot programs, and the other program track unique visitors and excludes visits by bots. Those are two different metrics and the numbers should be different.
      What's the difference between a unique visit and a visit then?
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by Tekamolo View Post

        What's the difference between a unique visit and a visit then?
        Hi Tekamolo,

        In the IT world there are technical terms that define certain metrics. One of those terms is used for defining a browser session on a web server. Since the term "session" isn't well understood by users outside of the industry, analytic packages often go with a "user friendly" term of "unique visits".

        Technically, the term "visit" might refer to a session, or it may refer to a page view. It typically depends on the context in which the term is used. If it is in relation to an individual page then it usually refers to a page view and when referring to site wide stats it usually refers to a web browser session. You must refer to the documentation provided by your analytic package for clarification.
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        • Profile picture of the author Trevor
          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

          Hi Tekamolo,

          In the IT world there are technical terms that define certain metrics. One of those terms is used for defining a browser session on a web server. Since the term "session" isn't well understood by users outside of the industry, analytic packages often go with a "user friendly" term of "unique visits".

          Technically, the term "visit" might refer to a session, or it may refer to a page view. It typically depends on the context in which the term is used. If it is in relation to an individual page then it usually refers to a page view and when referring to site wide stats it usually refers to a web browser session. You must refer to the documentation provided by your analytic package for clarification.
          Thank you for your clarification. However, when I compare numbers that from definition refer to the same thing (for example the number of "Unique visitors" in Awstats and the number of "Absolute unique visitors" in G Analytics), they still differ...

          Any further suggestions?
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          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Originally Posted by Tekamolo View Post

            Thank you for your clarification. However, when I compare numbers that from definition refer to the same thing (for example the number of "Unique visitors" in Awstats and the number of "Absolute unique visitors" in G Analytics), they still differ...

            Any further suggestions?
            They will rarely match because they are measuring using different technologies. Awstats pulls data from the server logs and therefor cannot detect pages viewed from cache servers or client-side caching. GA uses client side scripts which cannot detect activity from bots and browsers that have disabled scripting.

            Server stats will tend to over-report visitors and client side scripting will tend to under report visitors by a small percentage on average. So, the GA numbers are probably closer to the real number but may miss a small percentage.
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            • Profile picture of the author Trevor
              Hey there,
              so I checked my stats today in G Analytics and Awstats, and what is weird is the two stats differ PRETTY DRASTICALLY, I mean, it shows I got 23 visits on July 8th in G Analytics, whereas 88 in Awstats. How's that?
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              • Profile picture of the author dburk
                Originally Posted by Tekamolo View Post

                Hey there,
                so I checked my stats today in G Analytics and Awstats, and what is weird is the two stats differ PRETTY DRASTICALLY, I mean, it shows I got 23 visits on July 8th in G Analytics, whereas 88 in Awstats. How's that?
                Hi Tekamolo,

                GA only recognizes visits from script enabled browsers. It is typical to see a relatively large number of bot visits in your server stats that do not register as visitors in GA.
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  • Profile picture of the author coolmoss
    There is a WP plug-in called slimstat, that gives lots of stats similar to analytics, worth a go!
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  • Profile picture of the author nicktyler
    Visit is the total amount of times anybody comes to your site if one person visits more than once they only get 1 hit as a unique visitor. The UV is lower.
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  • Profile picture of the author nathanielf
    I get quite some hits from GoogleBot, Baidu spider, Yahoo crawler,... if I check my log in my Visitors module (Drupal module but WP probably has something similar). I think these hits are calculated in Hostgator Awstats but not in Google Analytics.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sam Dhawan
    Hostgator Stats also count Google spider, Yahoo crawler visits.. i guess this is something which confusing you..!
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  • Profile picture of the author ProvenViral
    Google analytics is a more in-depth search whileas awstats will record every hit and everything that touches your website even fake bots and visitors.
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    "Things may come to those who wait, but only things left by those who hustle". - Abraham Lincoln
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