WordPress Stats vs Google Analytics
If you have been tracking your blog’s traffic, you might have been wondering why your WordPress stats are apparently much greater than that which Google Analytics reports.
You’d like to believe your WordPress stats then, so which one is correct? Looking at WordPress stats vs Google analytics there is apparently a difference.
Well, what appears to be a huge discrepancy is really due to a difference in statistics collected.
WordPress Stats vs Google Analytics; Not So Mysterious
Google Analytics is a more in depth view of what type of visitations your blog is getting, where WordPress Stats provides a more high level view of the numbers.
The number counted (and graphed) by WordPress Stats are page views only (although it does not specify it’s definition of a ‘pageview’).
So, assuming this definition is similar to that which Google defines, it is a view of a page on your site, which pegs separately for reloads and links to other pages within your site.
The other information provided by WordPress Stats are: which pages and posts are most popular, your traffic sources, and outgoing links. So it is certainly a great plugin to be using on your blog!
But for more in depth analysis and statistics, Google Analytics is also an essential part of your tracking strategy.
It’s Not So Much a WordPress Stats vs Google Analytics Discrepancy
Once you understand the difference, the WordPress Stats vs Google Analytics number don’t seem so mysterious.
With Google Analytics, when you first visit the page, the graph shows ‘Visits’. Google defines Visits as the number of individual sessions initiated by your visitors, and any activity such as page reloads or clicks on other links within your site, as long as they don’t occur after 30 minutes of no activity (activity after 30 minutes will count as a new session).
Therefore, when you first check your Google Analytics view, it seems to be far less than the number indicated by your WordPress Stats.
But on Google Analytics, you have several other options to select other than ‘Visits’: Pageviews, Pages/Visit, Average time on Site, Bounce Rate and % of New Visits. Check all of these out and study the various data that you have at your fingertips here!
These graphs are in addition to traffic sources, most popular content, and other criteria for study within the Analytics tool.
- To understand better the definitions of visits, page views, and other related statistics terms used by Google, read Google’s reporting of clicks vs. visits and visitors, and page views vs. unique page views.
But in addition to the reported statistics, there is of course some margin of error, suspected to be somewhere between 5 and 10%, is usually attributed to java script blockers which can be installed on visitors’ browsers.
And, where it may depend on what plugins you have installed on your blog, Google may do a better job at disregarding hits by spiders and spam bots.
So taking into account what both WordPress Stats and Google Analytics have to offer will give you a more well rounded understanding of your blogs visitors and traffic trends.
And then it’s not so much a matter of WordPress Stats vs Google Analytics but how they are both perceived!
This is an excellent run down of the discrepency Vicki. Thank you for sharing this. It answers a lot of questions!
~ Michael Novak
Michael Novak´s last [type] ..The Best Industry to Learn Leadership
Thanks Michael!
Yes I had been wondering about this for quite a long time really. I knew there were probably reasonable answers but my curiosity finally got the best of me!
Thanks for stopping by, always a pleasure to see you!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Hi Vicki,
I didn’t even know about a WordPress plug-in that gives you statistics similar to Google Analytics. I’m guessing that I didn’t know about it because I have used the Google Analytics from day 1, so I didn’t need to do any research.
Even though I’ve had the Analytics for a couple of months now, I am still trying to figure out some of the statistics that the Analytics offer.
Thank You for the information about this.
John Engle
John Engle´s last [type] ..10 Indispensable SEO Content Writing Tips to Move Your Business Forward!
Hi John!
Well the opposite is what happened to me, I learned about Google Analytics after I had had WordPress Stats installed for a while. At first is was a bit disappointing to think I had not had as many visitors as I thought but it’s good to know unique visitors vs. unique page views, and yes, all the other things that I have not yet begun to explore as of yet either!
Always great to see you – make it a fabulous weekend!
Wishing you Brilliant Success,
Vicki,
Thanks for sharing this, i know there are so many ways to track blog traffic, i recently got a cool report from someone on twitter from a site called compete.com which gave some nice details on my traffic trends..Have an Awesome Weekend!
Chris Bernardo´s last [type] ..How to get 2 into your Business-Super Fast!
Hi Chris!
Thanks for the added value here!
Yes there are many ways to track progress and trends, I checked out the one you gave here, interesting!
Have Yourself and Awesome Weekend Too!
Hey Vicki – great info here. Thank you so much for sharing, I had no idea what was going on with my numbers, I was actually using my GA as more of a true guide than the WP Stats
Appreciate you taking the time to share this great info, I definitely have a better understanding about all this now
cheers
Nat
Nat´s last [type] ..Is Your CommentLuv All Of A Sudden Not “Sharing The Luv”
Hi Nat!
Great to see you again! I had some confusion in the back of my mind but knew there was an explanation. So when I finally figured it out, it seemed like a good thing to post about!
Thanks as always for your stopping by! Have a fantastic weekend!
Wishing You Wonderful Success,
Nice post vicki! To be candid have nt been taking note of this! I guess i need to take action now! Thanks alot!
Thank you Samuel!
It is something worth thinking about, how your blogs traffic is doing will mean a direct correlation to the number of leads you have!
Wishing You Wonderful Success!
Hi Vicki,
Great post! I know there are many including myself who find this information very helpful.
Anthony McNeil´s last [type] ..MLM Leads- A New MLM Lead Generation Tool
Hi Anthony!
Thank You! I’m glad you found some value here, it was something of a curiosity for me for a while, and it’s important we understand our traffic measurements!
Wishing You Tremendous Success!
HI Vicki,
thanks for sharing this information with us. I was always wondering why the WP Stats numbers look better, and you provided a reasonable answer.
Take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend´s last [type] ..Lessons From Robert Kiyosaki’s “Cashflow Quadrant” For My MLM Network Marketing Business
Hi Oliver!
Thanks for stopping by, yes I always wondered about that too, finally wondered long enough to go in search of the answers! Glad I did, one less thing to be distracted by, and it helps to better understand the stats we have!
Wishing you Brilliant Success!
Thanks for the clarification Vicki! Always love the valuable content you share! I personally utilize stat counter (plug in through wordpress) which I feel has given me a great overview of the traffic to my blog. It basically does the same as google analytics… I just like the functions of stat counter more.
I need to compare those two myself! Thanks for explaining the difference!
Jennifer May´s last [type] ..Closing Prospects- How I Closed 61 Prospects In ONLY 60 Days
Hey Jenn!
Weren’t we just talking about this the other day? That explains why our numbers were so different!
Thanks for clarifying Vicki!
Amanda Marie´s last [type] ..Entrepreneurship Is A Team Game… Or Is It
Hi Amanda! Thanks for stopping by!
Yes, it was definitely puzzling me, so I just had to get to the bottom of it! (Inquiring minds you know!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Hi Jennifer!
Great to see you as always! And thanks so much for your kind words!
Maybe the Stat counter plugin you use will actually describe what it’s reporting, as Google Analytics does – it’s just that WordPress stats didn’t make a distinction, which left me to wonder! I’ll have to check out the Stat counter, I had not heard of that one (so many plugins!).
Did you notice my blog loading more slowly? I may have added one plugin too many, the related posts with the pictures seems to have slowed it some.
Thanks again for stopping by, I hope you enjoy a wonderful week!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
I think the biggest difference is due to Google relying on Javascript, which a lot of people have disabled in their browsers. WordPress can accurately count all page visits because it can be tracked by the very PHP code that generates the page that your visitor requested, and it could also count unique visits by tracking the session. The downside to WordPress’s stats is that it can’t account for every spider because new ones are created almost every day.
Wayne Woodworth´s last [type] ..More Benefits to Hiking Than Just Exercise
Hi Wayne!
Thanks for your added insights! Yes it’s difficult to get truly the most accurate reading, but as long as you are more interested in trends then the precise number on any given day shouldn’t matter as much.
Great to see you as always, thanks for stopping by!
Wishing You Brilliant Success,
Great clarifying article Vicki…
Another reason for discrepancy is that neither WordPress Stats or Google Analytics track some traffic from various social networks, which can also cut down by another 5% to 15% of your actual traffic.
A good WordPress alternative for tracking is “Wassup” which shows IP addresses and domains, not as powerful in terms of slicing and dicing as Google Analytics, but works quite nicely for a “snapshot” of what’s happening in real-time on your site. Bonus – they pick up visits from social networking sites that Google doesn’t.
Giles (Webconomist)´s last [type] ..Get The Preliminaries Out Of The Way
Thank you Giles for your additional value here, much appreciated! I did not know that Google and WP actually missed counting hits from some social networks. That seems odd given I would think that it would be easy to count hits to a page from any source!
Wishing You Tremendous Success,
Hi
I have the opposite problem to what you describe. i.e. Google shows a much HIGHER number than what WordPress shows. In fact, Google shows about double the WordPress numbers.
I honestly can’t figure out why. Do you have any ideas?
Saeed Khan´s last [type] ..Leading Product Vision
Hi Saeed!
Well I am stumped, that’s the first I’ve heard of it that way! And I will tell you this, I have read that more and more internet marketers are going to sources outside of search engines to get the real numbers these days. I actually started recently using StatCounter.com which provides a WordPress plugin and some very detailed information. I still like looking at all three now, gives me a well rounded view
But to answer your next question here too, I think the discrepancy is explained fairly well in that the numbers appear to be based on differing criteria.
Thank you for stopping by!
Wishing You Great Success,
Vicki
Thanks for the reply. I’ve done some more digging. I’m not sure if this is the answer, but I think that WordPress filters out all the bots and spam hits coming into the blog, whereas Google gives the raw numbers.
I did some simple calculations and if I remove what Akismet counts as spam/ham on my blog from the Google stats, I get close to the WP stats. The remaining difference looks like a reasonable number for bot hits.
I’m going to see if Google Analytics can filter those out.
Saeed
Saeed Khan´s last [type] ..“One step at a time” can fail you
Hi Saeed!
That is interesting, and seems to be counter intuitive to my mention at the end of my post, “where it may depend on what plugins you have installed on your blog, Google may do a better job at disregarding hits by spiders and spam bots.” But as your results were opposite of my own (my WP stats were greater than my Google stats), it explains your results. I’m wondering too why I am seeing more spam in my WP dashboard these days and getting by Aksimet too. Maybe the bots are getting smarter. It’s hard to keep up!
Thanks for returning and reporting your findings!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Vicki
So my last theory was incorrect. While the numbers look like they work, I downloaded another stats plugin and am getting very different numbers — Wassup Stats.
i.e. they are more in line with the Google Analytics numbers than with WP. i.e. when I eliminate SPAM and Spider hits with Wassup, it’s similar to Google. i.e. much higher than WP.
I’m still confused as to why WP is so low. I tried your StatCounter suggestion, but had some troubles with the plugin so I removed it.
Will keep trying to figure this out.
Saeed
Saeed Khan´s last [type] ..Product Management lies at the heart of Innovation
One more point. Given the discrepancy between Google and WordPress, should which should I trust more?
Saeed Khan´s last [type] ..Leading Product Vision
I have alway been wording why is that much difference between google analytics and wordpress stats. Thanks for this great article. One point i want to add here is that the time zone difference in google analytics and wordpress stats can be a reason for non-synched stats.
Thanks, I’m glad this helped! And you’re right, time zone differences can certainly play a part in discrepancies!
Vicki,
Great post! (as always)… Even if someone doesn’t fully understand the technicalities, it’s useful to watch the numbers to see them change.
Generally speaking…
You want more visitors. If your visitor numbers are going up…. then that’s a good thing.
More pageviews is better.
You want to make your bounce rate go down.
Etc…
Sometimes we get lost in the technicalities and then avoid even looking at the numbers. So I just want to encourage everyone to LOOK on a regular basis. For me it’s a few times a week, for others it might be weekly or monthly.
Joe Shaw´s last [type] ..5 Easy Ways to Increase Followers On Twitter Free
Hi Joe!
Thanks for your added thoughts and value! I know I was discouraged from looking at my stats for a while because I really didn’t understand them. But with a little insight, and better traffic generating habits, I am now watching yhem regulrly, at least twice a week!
Thanks for stopping by, always great to see you!
Wishing you Tremendous Success,