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[missyw Friend missywJoin date: May 2008Posts: 171Downloads:0Uploads:19 Thanks: 98 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#139542

I am using the Who’s Online module to display the number of visitors who are online – it is set to display on one page of a new web site.

I have activated Google Analytics for this site, and inserted the javascript just before the </body> tag in the template html, as required. I now have 2 and half days of data in GA, and Google is displaying only 11 visits and 5 absolute unique visitors. Yet during this period, I have been logged on to the web site, and the Who’s Online has displayed sometimes 23 guests at the same time, other times 7, and more. So the online guest count way exceeds Googles estimate:confused:.

Can anyone suggest what could be the problem here?

[mj1256 Friend mj1256Join date: June 2007Posts: 1473Downloads:10Uploads:35 Thanks: 84 Thanked: 225 times in 118 posts]

#297800

Whos online is not a counted and was never meant to be used that way. Its misleading because people do not log out when they are done on your site, nor is the cookie expired until whatever setting you have in your browser expires them, thus the guest count is not really a guest count

I would trust GA as more accurate, but even that is questionable.

1 user says Thank You to mj1256 for this useful post

1. missyw

[jsliao Friend jsliaoJoin date: April 2008Posts: 817Downloads:0Uploads:12 Thanks: 25 Thanked: 236 times in 210 posts]

#297808

mj1256 is right. Who’s online is not an accurate way to count the number of visitors. In fact, there is no real way of actually counting the number of active users on the site. It really depends on what is the cookie timeout you have set and also whether the users actively logout from your site. a user may have very well left your site but did not log out and it will still be counted as active.

1 user says Thank You to jsliao for this useful post

1. missyw

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#297814

I generally don’t trust either! Google Analytics doesn’t seem to match my site stats at all (and the default ‘Who’s Online’ module is garbage).

Generally, I use JoomlaWatch:
http://www.codegravity.com/projects/joomlawatch

Which is a ‘live’ stats component, you can actually view in the backend who’s on the site and what they are looking at.

Quite neat!

2 users say Thank You to questbg for this useful post

1. imsleepy
2. missyw

[imsleepy Friend imsleepyJoin date: January 2009Posts: 451Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanks: 94 Thanked: 45 times in 1 posts]

#297817

Thanks for that info… I am off to check it out.

[Arvind Chauhan Moderator Arvind ChauhanJoin date: September 2014Posts: 3835Downloads:74Uploads:92 Thanks: 1240 Thanked: 1334 times in 848 posts]

#297820

google analytics does not count the page reloads as visits. So if i am to visit a site first time i would be marked as new unique visitor for the day, my entry page and exit page will be monitored along with time spent on the site. If i am to visit the same site again the same day, it wont be considered as visit. Google analytics tracker is cookies based.

<blockquote>Each unique browser that visits a page on your site is provided with a unique ID via the __utma cookie. In this way, subsequent visits to your website via the same browser are recorded as belonging to the same (unique) visitor. Thus, if a person interacted with your website using both Firefox and Internet Explorer, the Analytics reports would track this activity under two unique visitors. Similarly if the same browser were used by two different visitors, but with a separate computer account for each, the activity would be recorded under two unique visitor IDs. On the other hand, if the browser happens to be used by two different people sharing the same computer account, one unique visitor ID is recorded, even though two unique individuals accessed the site.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When visitors reach your site via a search engine result, a direct link, or an ad that links to your page, Google Analytics stores the type of referral information in a cookie. The parameters in the cookie value string are parsed and sent in the GIF Request (in the utmcc variable). The expiration date for the cookie is set as 6 months into the future. This cookie gets updated with each subsequent page view to your site; thus it is used to determine visitor navigation within your site.</blockquote>

1 user says Thank You to Arvind Chauhan for this useful post

1. missyw

[missyw Friend missywJoin date: May 2008Posts: 171Downloads:0Uploads:19 Thanks: 98 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#297846

<em>@questbg 120051 wrote:</em><blockquote>I generally don’t trust either! Google Analytics doesn’t seem to match my site stats at all (and the default ‘Who’s Online’ module is garbage).

Generally, I use JoomlaWatch:
http://www.codegravity.com/projects/joomlawatch

Which is a ‘live’ stats component, you can actually view in the backend who’s on the site and what they are looking at.

Quite neat!</blockquote> Thanks for that info! I’m off to check out JoomlaWatch too.

From a quick look, it is promising. Also sounds like you have to pay 15 euros to turn off some advertising? Is the advertising in the back-end only?

Cheers!

[missyw Friend missywJoin date: May 2008Posts: 171Downloads:0Uploads:19 Thanks: 98 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#297850

Hi Arvind, <em>@drarvindc 120057 wrote:</em><blockquote>… Similarly if the same browser were used by two different visitors, but with a separate computer account for each, the activity would be recorded under two unique visitor IDs…</blockquote> What is meant by a ‘computer account’?

[Arvind Chauhan Moderator Arvind ChauhanJoin date: September 2014Posts: 3835Downloads:74Uploads:92 Thanks: 1240 Thanked: 1334 times in 848 posts]

#297860

<em>@missyw 120089 wrote:</em><blockquote>Hi Arvind, What is meant by a ‘computer account’?</blockquote>

All the commonly used OS have multi user ability. For example, in windows one can create user accounts, other than the default “administrator” account.

above is the log on screen of windows xp, with two computer accounts. Hope this explains.

1 user says Thank You to Arvind Chauhan for this useful post

1. missyw

[we2solutions Friend we2solutionsJoin date: September 2014Posts: 526Downloads:0Uploads:21 Thanks: 136 Thanked: 100 times in 1 posts]

#297875

<em>@questbg 120051 wrote:</em><blockquote>I generally don’t trust either! Google Analytics doesn’t seem to match my site stats at all (and the default ‘Who’s Online’ module is garbage).

Generally, I use JoomlaWatch:
http://www.codegravity.com/projects/joomlawatch

Which is a ‘live’ stats component, you can actually view in the backend who’s on the site and what they are looking at.

Quite neat!</blockquote>

Hi questbg,

Once i installed JoomlaWatch to my site.then my database capacity increase lot. then i uninstalled that. so is this the best analytic module for joomla users??now i am only using Google Analytic.is that data is accurate??

thanks.

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#297923

<em>@missyw 120085 wrote:</em><blockquote>Also sounds like you have to pay 15 euros to turn off some advertising? Is the advertising in the back-end only?
</blockquote>

Yes indeed, these are the ads in Admin only. I payed the 15 euros but still get the ads! 😀

<em>@dumindard 120115 wrote:</em><blockquote>now i am only using Google Analytic.is that data is accurate??
</blockquote>

See above posts. Google Analytics in not accurate at all. Hence I use Joomlawatch even though it takes some bandwidth.

2 users say Thank You to questbg for this useful post

1. we2solutions
2. missyw

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