Very confusing difference between Google and Wabalizer

I am new at this! :)

[digitalcybermasters]

Hi all

For this month, Google is reporting a little over 6,000 clicks. I am trying to reconcile this with the Webalizer report for my web site. The hits on the web site are just less than 2,000. Visits are 1,300. Total unique user agents is 260. Absolutely none of the other stats in Webalizer come anywhere close to 6,000. What on earth is going on? I have tried contacting my hosting company but to no avail.

Please help!

[petra]

how did you measure 6000 clicks? or do you mean impressions?

[digitalcybermasters]

On the Google Adwords campaign summary page it lists all the campaigns, the 'clicks' per campaign and the total 'clicks' which at present show 6,233. Surely this represents the total number of 'click-throughs' to the web site and thus, assuming that there will be direct URL-based accessing of the site as well, there should be a figure in the Webalizer report that is more than 6,233. Shouldn't there?

[eWhisper]

I belive webalizer lists the referring search engine.

If the Google clicks came from an AOL search, then AOL would be the referrer, not Google.

Do you have search partners or content partners turned on in your AdWords campaigns?

[digitalcybermasters]

What I'm trying to address is simply the numbers. My problem is this: There must be a figure kept by any web site that counts up the number of visitors or viewers who enter the site (a bit like the counters on ebay listings). Equally, Google provides 'click' totals. There are likely to be direct URL accesses of the web site so it would be expected that some number from the web site would be a little (or a lot) more than the Google click throughs...except no numbers are similar to the Google click throughs, let alone more. How can this be? Am I mad? (Or stupid?)

[eWhisper]

AdWords is shown on several different websites. (i.e. you can get clicks from aol.com, ask.com, etc while only paying AdWords).

If someone clicks on an AdWords ad that's not on Google.com, then the referring URL will not be Google.com.

In AdWords, you're seeing all the clicks that the AdWords program (not Google) sent you, which includes a large variety of websites.

If your stats, you're only seeing those who came from Google.com.

These numbers aren't related in any way.

[digitalcybermasters]

I'm sorry but I still don't understand. I am not interested in the referring URLs. All I want to know is how it can be that Google reports 6,000 clicks but the website reports 2,000. Surely the sequence of events is thus: User types in seach string. Google displays relevant advert. User (it is hoped) clicks on advert. Number of Google clicks increases by one. User's browser goes to website. Website stats increase by one. In other words there should be a direct correlation between Google clicks and web site traffic. Which webalizer stat would (should?) be the one that increases by one each visit? Or isn't it that clear cut? Sorry to be dumb.

[digitalcybermasters]

Actually, there should be MORE hits on the website then Google clicks.

[HitProf]

Did you check the time frame? They may also be a few hours apart so check last day of previus month as well in Webalizer. Did you start beginning of month or halfway first month?

(If everything on your end is OK then you may want to ask Google to investigate possible click fraud.)

[digitalcybermasters]

Thanks for your reply. There is a reporting time difference - Google Adwords uses US Pacific time and Virtual Names uses GMT so there's about an eight hour difference. For the discrepancy to be caused by this or not taking into account the last day of the previous month, that last day would have to have had over 4,000 clicks :) which it didn't. You think it is fraud?

[eWhisper]

This post has some info on tracking systems and what they don't capture:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[OptiRex]

In our experience Webalizer is notoriously inaccurate since it counts every visitor to the site regardless of who or what they are. It does not, or cannot, differentiate between humans and spiders/bots.

We found this out recently when moving about 30 sites to a new ISP which uses Awstats and we saw that between 30-50% of visitors were actually spiders/bots.

Interestingly and correctly the page views were still showing the same averages.

[HitProf]

dcm,

I thought maybe there could have been a been a spike in visitors just before of after your Webalizer time frame. The only other thing I can think of: does your Webalizer count all pages, or just the home page? Where do you Google ads go to?

How are your Google clicks spread out over time within this month? Is there a spike on a particular day, or are they spread out evenly? How many clicks in previous months? Do they compare?

I suppose you don't have raw server logs?

I'd contact Google to see if they can clarify this for you if you can't find any errors on your side.

Good luck!