awstats show huge traffic from facebook.com but GA show none. Why?

Google Analytics does not report traffic from http://www.facebook.com/

[sakg]

Of late, I have seen a huge traffic coming from http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php (as per awstats at my server). However, Google Analytics shows just a fraction of what is being reported by awstats.

I know for sure that I am getting traffic from facebook from posting on wall by users. But GA show just a few visitors being referred by facebook.

What's wrong?

[edited by: tedster at 2:38 pm (utc) on Jun 25, 2010]
[edit reason] displayed the full url [/edit]

[sakg]

Any help on this? I really want to know if actually I am getting traffic from facebook or not. If yes, exactly how much of traffic.

Thanks for any feedback / help on this...

[StoutFiles]

Analytics, from my limited use of it, isn't all that accurate. It provides average results, slower loading pages, and informs Google about all of your traffic for their data collection.

I'd go with your own servers stats over a JS plugin.

[chadman37]

absolutely agree with stout on this one. your webhost
stats pages (most webhosts that is) has excellent
stats pages.

[chadman37]

anybody else having any luck with facebook? ive seen
moderate results, but nothing making me want to write home for. =)

[Digmen1]

Yes, slight off topic but

I booked some RON ads with AdToll, and they say I am getting clicks, but my StatCounter program does not show them and I think my Google Analyicts does not show them !

AddToll say I have to add some sub-id tracking software. Like Tracking 202.

That seems a lot of unnecessary extra work !

[Robert Charlton]

The Facebook url is http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php [facebook.com]

The content reads...

Be the first of your friends to like this. · · Error

While that's pretty funny, it might indicate that the page is a redirect page of some sort. What does the page actually do? Is it an indication of live traffic to the site, or is it an internal Facebook page of some kind that's confirming the url, but not necessarily sending visitors?

This isn't my area of expertise, but the above is the first question I'd ask in this kind of situation, since Google Analytics uses javascript to count actual page loads on your site, whereas your server stats are most likely counting server calls.

Anyway... I'm not necessarily disagreeing with previous answers. I don't know how Facebook has this set up. The huge disparity reported by the OP (Original Poster), though, makes me curious about what's actually going on, so I'm asking to double-check interpretations.