Apr 28, 2010 1
Smarter Stats vs. Google Analytics, why totals differ.
A common question we get is why Smarter Stats’ numbers and Google Analytics’ numbers don’t match? I have yet to see a definitive answer to this, but here is my best attempt to answer from what I know and from various sources.
First off, Smarter Stats (SS) more so than Google Analytics (GA) expects IT people to view the stats for usage, load and traffic. Therefore SS wants to be as inclusive as possible.
SS is log based, which includes data collected from all Web site visitors vs. GA which is tag based. Products like GA use JavaScript to track Web site visitors and potentially miss a significant percentage of search engine referrals in their metrics. Since not all Web surfers have JavaScript enabled in their Web or mobile browsers, these competing products tend to underreport Web site visitor statistics. Plus, if any pages are missing the GA code, their stats would not be included. So, SS will always report MORE information because GA and similar services don’t see Browsers/Mobile Devices and Spiders that do not support Java Script call backs.
SS, as mentioned above does include Bots & Spiders. This can represent a huge jump over GA in some cases. You can go the Spider Totals and manually subtract them to help in comparing to GA.
Also, Log Analyzers are not as good at tracking unique visitors, since they count them by IP address. With dynamic IP addresses, one person could look like 10 different (unique) visitors, or 10 people like the same visitor.
Plus, caching can affect totals. There is no really good way to know how much these issues affect data collection.
Another issue, the length of idle time before being considered a new visit, can alter results. SS idle time is approximately 20 minutes before being considered a new visit.
Overall, I think forces work to over-report in SS and under-report in GA. But for those who are more concerned about missing something, SS may ultimately be the more accurate especially with the separate Spider stats available. However, many of our customers prefer the user-friendly aspects of GA.