Stats not matching

[Risikio]

When I looked at the stats this morning for yesterday the summary page says I had 10 hits from 2 visitors. When I go to the visitors path and the recent page views to see where my visitors came from it says I only had 5 page loads from a single visitor. Why the difference?

Thanks.

[webado]

See here if it applies: http://forum.statcounter.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39

[Risikio]

Thanks. My project is on this partition 3 so this may be the issue. I will check again tomorrow to see if the stats are updated to match between the summary and the visitor paths.

[webado]

Don't forget that the summary's notion of (new) unique visitors is not the same as the grouping of visitors by IP address you get in detailed stats. The former works only by cookies (no cookie, all hits are counted as new unique visitors regardlesss of IP address).


Only the total number of hits is what can be actually used and even then you must allow for the possibility of the log contents rolling over before the day is up.

[Risikio]

Thanks, but it seems to be both the hits and visitors that are not matching. It almost appears that the summary has doubled the actual number of hits and visitors that are being reported by the Visitor Paths and the Recent Page Views for yesterday (8/28/06). Would knowing the project name and website help? I am no longer sure that the lagging in reporting is the issue because the hits for today match up between the three statistical views.

[webado]

Your log rolls - so if the sumamry shows more than 100 hits (or wahtever your log size is) then you will know you cannot find all of them in the recent pageloads any more - so you cnanot actually match them up that way.

[Risikio]

I don't think the log roll is the issue. My site doesn't average enough hits for the ones from the day in question to roll off. Those won't roll off for about two weeks. So I am still puzzled by what the difference is and why it only occurred on that day. If is is a lag in reporting, when should I expect that to catch up? As of this morning the difference between the two remains. The Project is WV Positve Behavior Support. Not sure if that helps or not.

Thanks.

[webado]

You'd have to make your stats public and give a link here, no other way to dissect.

[Risikio]

Link to stats - http://my.statcounter.com/project/standard/stats.php?project_id=964165&guest=1

Thanks.

[webado]

Ok, so your log doesn't show the 10 hits on Aug. 28.

Either it's showing double what it was (in error), or the other 5 hits are lost and only got into the summary.

Can't tell either way, sorry.

[Risikio]

This same thing has occurred again with the stats from 9-20-06! There has to be some sort of explanation. I really like StatCounter, but unfortunately at this point I am looking for another counter because it seems the problem can't be located or solved. Too bad. You guys had a good thing going.

[Risikio]

My mistake. Happened again on 9-19-06, not 9-20. I have 12 hits from 3 unique visitors and 1 returning visitor in the log, but the summary shows double on everything.

[webado]

Ok, I see what you're saying.

I suppose your project is on partition 3 - server c4.

I see the htis from 19th are shown double in the sumamry for that day (but normal in the log), and the actual number of hiots from the 19ht are also added to the summary number for the 20th.

I will report it.

[Risikio]

Thanks. I noticed this morning they are doing maintenance on my project. Hopefully everything will work out.

[webado]

Thanks. I noticed this morning they are doing maintenance on my project. Hopefully everything will work out.
See Webmaster's post at the top of the Service Status forum section.

[Risikio]

I seem to be having a problem with Stats not matching again, but this is a little different this time. Both the Summary and the Visitor Path Log show the same number of Visits. The Summary shows 19 hits from today (November 9, 2006) from 19 Unique individuals. The Visitor Path Log however shows 19 hits from 2 Unique visitors. Any idea on why the unique visitors are showing up differently?

Thanks.

[webado]

UNique in summary stats is based on a cookie, not on the IP address. In the detailed stats it's based on the Ip address.

A visitor without a fixed Ip address but with cookies enabled will get recognized as a single unique visitor, regardless of whatever Ip address he's got for each hit. In the detailed stats that woud look like several seeming differnt visitor, by ip address.

In particualr a visitro from AOL - a diffent IP address for every pageload - would be counted as one unique visitor in summary stats, but wil lresults in as many different visitors as pageloads he made in Recent Visitors, because that is by Ip address.

[Risikio]

Just to clarify that I understand correctly - My visitor has a fixed ip address in the detailed stats. Since the summary stats are based on cookies, are you saying the visitors cookies were deleted with each new page the visited? This would indicate that the visitor deletes cookies with every browser refresh or pageload? Is this common?

Thanks.

[westmoors]

If a visitor has cookies disabled, for the summary stats, each hit will be perceived as from a different visitor. However, if this visitor has a static IP address, in the detailed stats they will be listed as a single visitor.

[Risikio]

Thanks. That makes sense. Not sure why I didn't think of that.