Thread: Why you shouldn't rely on Analytics

Jeremy (Shoemoney) has a great post on "how bad" analytics is when you need to drill-down your data.

My Basic 3 Pronged Approach To Website Analytics - ShoeMoney®

I couldn't agree more. I too use G Analytics and Awstats(Provided by my Webhost) and i find the latter one way more convenient and useful.
I wouldn't blame google but there are 'many' people who browse without the use of Javascript. Take a person routed from a proxy site for example where most of the times javascript is 'off' by default.

I agree with the use of AwStats. I use both Analytics and AwStats. There are some aspects of each that provide useful information.

A lot of people do not realize it, but any user who sets the security level to High in Internet Explorer deactivates active scripting, which includes JavaScript. I've seen some estimates that claim that the number of users with JavaScript disabled is as much as 10%.

W3 Schools claims that it is currently about 5%.

Browser Statistics

I currently utilize:
AwStats, Analytics and Piwik.

On certain sites, I use 'CrazyEgg' to see what people are doing on my site.

Relying solely on Google Analytics is not a good idea, but it seems far too many people think otherwise.

Hi,

I think it is a spy. They know what they send you. I think all they are trying to find out is what their competition is sending you and where your other views are coming from.

Sami

Originally Posted by Shenron

Jeremy (Shoemoney) has a great post on "how bad" analytics is when you need to drill-down your data.

I dont think its "how bad" google analytics is, it just does not show you everything. Not showing "everything" is not good or bad, that is just the way it is.

I think Jeremy makes a good point of how to use more then one tool to view your traffic stats.

If you are not contented with the G analytics, you can try to use Click Tale, it is another good tool to monitor you traffic including the page view of your page plus you can also the behavior of the viewer on the page. I been using that tool to monitor the heart heat of the site.

Originally Posted by Shenron

Jeremy (Shoemoney) has a great post on "how bad" analytics is when you need to drill-down your data.

My Basic 3 Pronged Approach To Website Analytics - ShoeMoney®

It's odd that he would promote Webalizer. At least when I used it, Webalizer was significantly inferior to AWStats.

G. Analytics is great to track visitors but it is not meant to monitor usage of your server resources.

I use combination of both stat systems - server and javascript based.

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

It's odd that he would promote Webalizer. At least when I used it, Webalizer was significantly inferior to AWStats.

I also prefer AwStats to Webalizer.

It is also odd that Shoemoney made a blatant mistake in the article. All of those 66.249.71.xxx IPs belong to Google, not Yahoo.