The Accuracy of Google Analytics…or not
Usually one of the first things a new client will ask me about is adding Google Analytics tracking to their website. There seems to be a lot of hype about Google Analytics which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best website statistics program to use. It’s free, so like anything else, you get what you pay for. As a matter of fact, I compared Google Analytics results head to head with the actual web server statistics from one of my client’s websites and the sever logs reported twice the amount of visitors than what Google served up. So what gives? An excerpt from an article below explains in a bit more detail:
From a mathematician’s perspective it’s not that good at all. All professional web analysts know that Google Analytics significantly underestimates traffic in the overwhelming majority of cases. Anyone who has ever compared the stats from their web server with the stats from Google Analytics knows that the two sets of numbers rarely match up.
There are several reasons why, but the most significant factor is that the GA tracking code only fires if the person loading the page has Javascript enabled. That means that search engine crawlers and other automated web crawlers don’t get picked up, which is great- for the most part, web analytics is only concerned with the activities of real people- but it also means that anyone browsing with Javascript disabled will be completely invisible.
After my own research into this, I have come to the conclusion that although Google Analytics is still a useful tool, I would not rely on it entirely for accuracy. I would, as always, tend to believe my actual website server log statistics first. Any good web hosting company will provide access to your website server statistics so why not play it safe and compare your actual server statistics with what Google provides?
Alpine Web Media for Mobile Devices
We have just added new functionality to the Alpine Web Media, LLC. blog especially for viewing on mobile devices such as the iPhone. Now you can view all of our posts in an easy to read list format with your mobile device, so check it out!
Alpine Web Media Website Updated
It’s been awhile but we at Alpine Web Media, LLC have completed an upgrade of our website. Like the mechanic who is so busy his own car never gets fixed, we finally had a few days to make some changes and get the website up to 2011 standards.
A lot has changed in the web design world over the past few years. Now, instead of designing static, HTML websites, customers are requesting content management systems (CMS) type websites. Thankfully, since WordPress 3.0 came out with a major overhaul, that is now much more affordable than in the past.
Because of this great new breakthrough, we can now offer affordable real estate websites that tie into MLS and IDX systems via widgets and plugins. Check out an example Vermont real estate website here.
We have also found better shopping carts and the best news of all is that some of them are free of cost and opened source. The catch is that for all the best bells and whistles, you’re still going to have to opt for a paid shopping cart or e-commerce system. Here is an example of Open Cart, which we really like for it’s clean appearance and functionality.
And finally, we have added a pricing plan grid which should make selecting a website and web marketing system much easier. We found that most people aren’t really sure what they want so we hope this new pricing plan option works well.