jonathonhewitt - 5:06 pm on Jan 6, 2011 (gmt 0)

No, you are not, you have chosen the right version of your Google Analytics code. Google Analytics in comparison to server stats have been known to differ greatly and the first thing to know is that there are pros and cons to all different tracking methods and exactly how many people see your site in any given period of time is essentially unknown due to the way that the internet works. Since computers share and change IP addresses and people have multiple computers, mobile phones and other devices that can access the internet, no web statistic will ever give you a true true answer. Once you accept this, you can understand how the two main types of traffic data solutions attempt to compensate for this and decide which better meets your needs.

Sever log files very literally and accurately tell you how many (and which) pages or files were viewed, and you can get reports of this information with log file analysis software like AWstats, Sawmill, and Webalizer. Unfortunately, and this goes along the lines of the uncertainty principle, the more perfectly you know this data the more difficult it is to know how many people really viewed your pages and files.

This is because the information in log files (i.e. time stamp, file name, requesting IP, and browser) is limited. To counteract this log file software defines rules that say what constitutes a visit and a unique visitor, but this information is never fully accurate or standardized across different server logs.

The Bottom Line: Log files will always give you a higher number of page views, visits, and unique visitors when compared to a web-based, javascript solution like Google Analytics, and in most cases the high numbers are too high.