Comparing google analytics with weblog expert
The weblog files and the google analytics files differ enormously.
For example in July alone my weblog files said I have 798,000 visitors to the site yet my google analytics say 172,000. What can be causing the anomaly.
I feel the google analytics is too low. But the weblog is too high. The only explanation I can think of with the google analytics is that the code is not inserted into every page. Yet I inserted into the header which is on every page.
With the weblog expert it is recording my page views in the millions. Making the page views per user look ridiculous. So I know the weblogs are wrong but don't know why?
Could the server be giving wrong data? If so how?
For example in July alone my weblog files said I have 798,000 visitors to the site yet my google analytics say 172,000. What can be causing the anomaly.
I feel the google analytics is too low. But the weblog is too high. The only explanation I can think of with the google analytics is that the code is not inserted into every page. Yet I inserted into the header which is on every page.
With the weblog expert it is recording my page views in the millions. Making the page views per user look ridiculous. So I know the weblogs are wrong but don't know why?
Could the server be giving wrong data? If so how?
I am not an expert on software and how it works. I use Weblogs for years but recently my programmers also installed GA. There is a huge difference in traffic and in referrer numbers. For example today ( 24h period) my Weblogs shows 25,000 unique visitors while GA shows 3,000, and a forum I contribute to frequently, shows 350 referrers and GA shows 6. Why such a huge difference?? It cannot be just robots?? Any advice would be appreciated. Is there a collection of data difference??
I am not an expert on software and how it works. I use Weblogs for years but recently my programmers also installed GA. There is a huge difference in traffic and in referrer numbers. For example today ( 24h period) my Weblogs shows 25,000 unique visitors while GA shows 3,000, and a forum I contribute to frequently, shows 350 referrers and GA shows 6. Why such a huge difference?? It cannot be just robots?? Any advice would be appreciated. Is there a collection of data difference??
There are few main reasons why WebLog Expert may show more visitors and page views than Google Analytics:
1. There are some visitors that request only non-page files like images and downloadable files. Such visitors aren't counted by Google Analytics but are counted by WebLog Expert.
If you wish to get information on visitors who accessed pages only we recommend you to create an include "File" filter with value %PageFiles%
2. There are spiders that request pages without running the JavaScript code. Most spiders should be detected by their useragent by WebLog Expert, in such case they aren't counted as visitors and their requests aren't counted as page views. However, ones that aren't detected will be counted such way.
3. If you have AJAX requests for files that are detected by pages, they may also cause increased number of page views. If you know that such files indeed exist on your site, you should also try to exclude them using filters.