Which Is The Best Traffic Analyzer: Google Analytics, AWstats or Quantcast?

Hi zoobie,

I have to disagree with you basic premise, these systems use direct measurement not estimation. The only exception being if you have not set up an account with Quantcast and added there code to your pages, they will provide estimates.

I have found that all three of these systems provide reliable data for what they are measuring. The fact is that they measure different things and it is useful to use all three.

AWStats reports what is recorded in your server logs while Analytics and Quantcast use page tagging. These latter two require that you have properly added the code snippits in all the correct places. If you haven't added the codes properly then you will not get accurate data.

Neither server logs nor page tagging will give you 100% effective tracking. Page tagging relies on the visitors browser reporting the analytics information. Sometimes the security settings will prevent this data from being transmitted.

Server logs will accurately track all transaction on your web server regardless of the browser settings, however it will miss many requests due to file caching on the visitor's browser.

The main advantage of page tagging is that the javascript will be called everytime the page is loaded so you can track your visitor's behavior even when pages are loaded from the browser's cache (or proxy server cache).

I recommend that you use all three tracking systems as they each give you a different slice of the data. Quancast is especially useful for capturing demographic data that compares your sites traffic to the rest of the world wide web. Analytics gives your excellent reports particularly related to keywords. AWStats is great for analyzing your server log data and lets you see data that can't be measured by page tagging.

Quantcast is also uniquely useful as a trusted third party verification that is publicly accessible. This can be very useful when selling ads or assessing the value of your site for a sale, investment, other transaction.

By using them all together you get a more complete picture of what's going on. Analyzing the differences and learning exactly why there are discrepancies can be enlightening and very useful.

another vote for Awstats

Hi vaintheartiste,

Yes that is correct, but almost no person surfs the web without Javascript enabled these days. It is almost exclusively robot programs that visit without Javascript and you are likely getting a number that is wildly over your true stats. So go by your server logs if you don't care about people, just server load. If you care about people then the other metrics are probably much closer to true numbers.

Also note that Sever logs (AWStats) cannot track page views from cached sources like browser cache or proxy servers. A lot of traffic comes from company proxies and your server logs will only show a tiny fraction of that traffic.

Each of these tools are targeting different metrics, AWStats is simply measuring requests to the server, while GA is measuring browser visits and Quantcast is measuring people. It seems silly to choose one over others, why not use all three?

Good call.. GA provides way better reporting than Awestats and way more depth and detail. Plus, you have the advantage of things like Goals/Funnels.. and integration with Adsense and Adwords if you are into that type of thing.

I think Google Analytics is the ultimate winner