Large discrepancy between reported and recorded clicks

[georgiek50]

To the more experienced webmasters I would like to ask your opinion on some issue.

I have a simple script that records clicks to affiliate sites into SQL...quite simple, just IP, time, URL, and page from where the ad was.

With one of the programs I am associated with, they are reporting ~5,000 clicks in Nov. where I have ~7,000 clicks recorded.

I know that there are always discrepancies with these issues but should these number raise a red flag? Any similar experiences? If something sounds fishy, how do you go about calling them out in an effective way?

[growingdigital]

Are you filtering unique/duplicate clicks? Perhaps CJ's report is.

Second, variation is always normal when comparing reporting systems. Admittedly your variation is a little on the high side.

[georgiek50]

No, I'm not filtering, but just frow eyeing a bunch of rows there's no way that duplicates could account for that much difference. It's almost 1 in 2 people clicking twice.

It would be nice if I could get my hands on the IP's of all the poeple they have recorded. Then the comparison would be quite simple to do.

[Andrew83]

That's a good question. I would suggest improving your tracking system by using IPv6 and cookie tracking. Use IPv6 addresses for a quicker searchthru the system, they're integers only and can be stored in a BIGINT column, so that MySQL can easaly match values (that would be harder and time/resource consuming if you store IPs only in a VARCHAR column). Here's the methodology I recommend:

Check for cookie. If no cookie check the database for an IPv6 match. If you don't find a record matching the IPv6 write a record for unique hit. If you find an IPv6 record write a raw hit. After writing the hit set a cookie. The cookie is useful for direct raw hit. If a cookie is found, directly write a raw hit. That will optimize your tracking and you'll have up to 90-95% stats matching, at that moment, I'm sure that you have nothing to worry about, but if you improve your system and this thing continue I suggest you report this and start looking for another program. Ofcourse! CONTACT them before that and ask #*$! is going on, you have to be polite after all :)))