How accurate is google analytics?

[azn romeo 4u]

I'm using another web counter over at [histats.com...] for almost two years now. It has a lot of great features. But lately, I noticed my site traffic has gone down.

So then I plug in Google Analytics, I see that, GA is showing 20% more views and visitors. I use to use statcounter but noticed they were not very accurate.

I would use server resources like awstats or something else, but I don't like the fact that it counts every hit on every file. Haven't used it in 5 years, not sure if it still does that.

But in your experience is GA the most accurate 3rd party?

[Alex_TJ]

The best I've found is piwik

[indusharma]

According to my experience google analytics tells exact detail of visitors and i also used it and i found it is exact and good.

[netmeg]

Over the years I've had to give Google Analytics a plus or minus margin of error of about 25%.

[azn romeo 4u]

I'm currently testing GA and Piwik right now. I don't like the new GA. And I don't like the fact that it is so mobile unfriendly.

For some reason Piwik doesn't show pageviews day by day. Of I haven't been able to figure that out.

Damn, maybe I shouldn't have left histats. IMO it's more complete than both Piwik, Statcounter, and GA. I been tracking sites for about 7 years.

[topr8]

>>I would use server resources like awstats or something else, but I don't like the fact that it counts every hit on every file. Haven't used it in 5 years, not sure if it still does that

erm you can configure AWSTATS however you want AIFAIK you always have been able to, you can add new search engines, discount certain files or all particular file types, basically it is pretty versatile.