Is Google Analytics traffic count accuracy in flux?

[Bill_H]

Hi:
Many have commented over the last few months of weekly algo updated by Google that seem to resolve or roll back the following Monday. Certainly all of my retail websites are seeing this since March.

Very recently, according to GA, our traffic has dropped off the proverbial cliff and interestingly we were not seeing a commensurate drop in orders. I started comparing GA traffic counts against SmarterStats traffic counts that are running on our servers. Our SmarterStats server traffic counts statistically consistently matched our order stats, much better that GA traffic counts.

We are running GA high on the page, asynch and have changed nothing on page that would affect GA traffic counts.

If you are seeing wild weekly swings in your traffic counts, at least according to GA, take a fresh look at your server traffic count stats and see if they match within reason what GA is reporting. If you can, share your findings. Perhaps there are now issues with GA.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

[dstiles]

I think a few more people are turning off GA javascripts in their web browsers now. I've been doing so for several years and I know others do.

[Bill_H]

dstiles:
I rather doubt that 99% of our customers would have a clue about turning off javascripts in their browser.

Best,
Bill

[dstiles]

They would if they use FF with NoScript - it's a default setting. We recommend this to all of our contacts and many actually use it. :)

[Zivush]

@dstiles,
This is only my observation and I am sure many will tell the opposite:
A year ago, I suspected GA stats.
The reason to this -
On GA stats, the time on site, BR and page/visit shows some incredible spikes while I don't even touch the site.

After a close look at two server stats as well as some other ad networks reports, I came to a conclusion that GA is not so accurate.

I don't trust GA, especially not their visits count, time one site, page/visit etc.
to my best findings, the only figure which looks (almost) OK is the pageviews. All others, including visits, are just derived statistics.

[dstiles]

My original reason for turning off GA in my browser was: it took ages to load, leaving me waiting for the web page. Killed GA and the pages leapt up quickly. Whether this still applies I don't know - I've never enabled it since and in the current G climate I doubt I ever will.

[Bill_H]

What is really puzzling is the cyclical nature of the stats running amok. Thursday night to Monday, GA's stats are all over the place compared to our server stats, while our conversions are remaining normal. Seems bizzare to me. Many suspect that G is uploading new algos on Thursday, maybe the recent algos are hosing GA stats?

Best,
bill

[JamesWt]

I think when it compared with stats then it can cause a chaos because GA has more filters for analyzing the traffic so it can conflict a traffic report about any website.