Over the past couple of months, I’ve been paying particular attention to traffic stats using a handful of analytics apps across scores of sites, and I’m developing a theory: they’re all wrong.
More precisely, they’re inconsistent. They get referrers right, but the remaining metrics of interest display in amazing variety.
With all my enthusiasm for Mint, I can’t overlook the fact that it generates conflicting data with Webalizer, Webtrends, Urchin (before Google’s acquisition,) and even Shaun Inman’s own WordPress plugin, ShortStat. I’m not picking on Shaun (aside from my firm belief that he sprinkles crack on his product to make it more addicting.) Pick any two apps in my earlier list and you’ll see the same wild discrepancies I’m noticing.
If the world could at least agree on an exact spec for analyzing the top three metrics (visits/sessions, unique visitors, and page views), we’d all be able to speak a lot more intelligently about traffic. It occurred to me that I’m actually excited about a product (re-)release from Google: Google Analytics. Maybe they can bully the world into a precedent.
2 Responses to “Web analytics gone crazy”
have you tried http://clickstats.com ? it looks pretty interesting.
I saw the piece on LifeHacker today and was interested… I’m just not interested in switching to a PC to use it (I like my Macs.)