Which Site Analytics Programme should I believe?

[PhilJP]

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On one of my new sites, now running a couple of months, I've set up two different site analytics to compare, one with GoDaddy, where my site is hosted, and the other with Google Analytics.

I've had wildly different results back from both and I'm not sure which to believe, or how to investigate further. With GoDaddy, in the last month, it tells me my site has. received 1,134 unique vistiors, while Google Analyitcs tells me I have had only 7!

I think that some of the difference will be due to GoDaddy including visits from search engine robots, but I can't believe that this would account for such a huge difference.

Has anyone had a similar experience, and which analytics programme should I trust?

Thanks
Phil

[MattSweet]

Have you got the correct analytics code on every page not just the homepage?

Also, if you can access cpanel on your hosting have a look at awstats. Keep scrolling down and you'll find info on robots visits and, near the bottom, a list of search traffic including keywords.

[euraffiliates]

I have some sort of experience with many sites. There will be always difference with GA with other stats. GA values are always on the lower side. Normally GA removes the site crawler visits or by any automated system. This makes a reasonable difference. Normally weblizer (Just like go daddy that basically process log files) shows 3 to 6 time higher value (if you have not restricted certain IPs in GA setting). But 1,134 & 7 is something I never heard.

Can you please check the setting? Is it integrated properly? Can you please double check the keywords and sources to see you are viewing the right GA account report.

It is also good idea to verify the goodady data with awstats data or weblizer data if available as suggested by MattSweet.

I prefer to make decisons on GA data.

[PhilJP]

Have you got the correct analytics code on every page not just the homepage?

Good point - I thought I had it on every page, but realised that I'd not got it on a few recent posts I've made. This will account for some of the difference, but I'm not sure it will be all of it. Some pages which are reported to get a lot of views on GoDaddy are not getting any at all on GA.

Also, if you can access cpanel on your hosting have a look at awstats. Keep scrolling down and you'll find info on robots visits and, near the bottom, a list of search traffic including keywords.

I'll have to take a look at this and see if it helps me get to the bottom of it.

Can you please check the setting? Is it integrated properly? Can you please double check the keywords and sources to see you are viewing the right GA account report.

How do I check that it is integrated properly? I did notice that it took a while to start reporting, with the 'hazard' symbol on the dashboard - how do I test/check that it is working okay for all pages?

Thanks for your help Matt and Euraffiliates.