Traffic Analysis

[pasopaso]

Hi

 

Looking for a deeper, more qualitative and more precise Traffic Analysis, source, destination, in/out traffic, than the tools offered by my hosting (1and1), I installed Google Analytics GA.

 

1/ Google Analytics:

Used the suggestion from a forum to install it in the footer.php, to avoid delaying download of the page if placed earlier in the page.

 

- Traffic Data not sent with initial code got during the initial installation process at GA pages.

 

code was:

<script type="text/javascript">

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

</script>

<script type="text/javascript">

try {

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12714882-1");

pageTracker._trackPageview();

} catch(err) {}</script>

-----

This code was uneffective, data was not sent to google analytics, during 48h.

 

- Changed the code with another got from the support pages q&a from GA, supposedly "more recent version":

<script type="text/javascript">

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

</script>

<script type="text/javascript">

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");

pageTracker._trackPageview();

</script>

------------------

This one is more effective and some data was sent and displayed by GA admin interface.

 

PROBLEM with GA:

Stats are 10% the stats of my hosting, quantitatively speaking, ie Unique Visitors.

 

Q1 > Is it compulsory to install a specific contrib to make GA work correctly, if so which one may you please suggest.

 

Or shall it usualy work correctly with the copy and paste of the GA code at the footer?

If so what could be causing this unreliable data results?

 

Q2> GA mentions does not work if Urchin or other stats tools mat be already installed in the site (like by the hosting). Do not wan to lose hosting stats... Does installing GA imply you do not use anymore any other traffic analyser?

 

Q3: > What other tools would you suggest to analyse traffic alternatively to GA, wit 2 main objectives:

1 Priority: qualitative analysis: particularly source of visits, referrals, search, geography and domains. IN & OUT.

2 confirm or ad other feedback to the hosting Unique Visits stats.

 

Thanks a lot in advance

 

rgds

[♥bruyndoncx]

Q1 not that I'm aware of

 

Q2 no, your hosting stats would not be javascript based, but server based

this might explain the difference, GA only counts visitors with javascript enabled, others won't be seen by GA as it wouldn't run the javascript code correctly;

your hosting stats probably also count all spiders hitting your website

 

Q3 there are others similar to google, but I don't have experience with it. GA is a later/modified version of Urchin as they bought Urchin about 3/4 years ago I think.

[Hotclutch]

Visitor Web Stats and/or Supertracker contributions