RESOLVED: Visitor Counts Are Off

[Omomyid]

Since yesterday, visitor counts have been incredibly low.
For 12/11 Visitors in beta = 16 and for 12/12 (so far) visitor counts in beta = 1. However, page views appear to be more or less correct when compared to standard account.
By way of comparison, the standard account shows visitor counts like :
12/11: 65
12/12: 37

[webado]

Mine's the opposite LOL

I have nearly twice as many reported on sc4 as on the regular one.

[bobby13]

Yeah, mine are about double also, yesterday and so far today.

[Omomyid]

So Page Loads have mysteriously rocketed for today AND yesterday. Is it possible that the visitors are being misapplied to the Page Load count?

[wishydig]

Lately the number of unique visitors on the beta project has been around 0-1 for every 50 pagehits I get--while the standard project is counting as expected.

The correlation between counters has been off by as much as double (each way depending on the day).

[CrazyCow]

So Page Loads have mysteriously rocketed for today AND yesterday. Is it possible that the visitors are being misapplied to the Page Load count?This is my take on the problem as well. See my post here (http://forum.statcounter.com/vb/showthread.php?t=31126).

[Car Guy]

Remember guys that SC4 is beta, meaning it may have bugs.

They are aware that the stats between the two do not align, and are working it out.

[Tamas Kalman]

Hey,

yesterday we've finished the last phase of SCv4 data storage layer - We hope now you'll get only the correct numbers! In any other case, feel free to report - thank you!

Tamas Kalman


This is my take on the problem as well. See my post here (http://forum.statcounter.com/vb/showthread.php?t=31126).

[Car Guy]

I have destroyed all cookies & removed my IP from blocking.

SC3 counts me, SC4 does not.

Their is still a discrepancy between the two counters. Some are counted by one, and not the other, and also the other way around.

Richard

[nothingwrongwithme]

My counts between the old counter and the new beta are still way off.

I've taken screencaps to illustrate.

I'm not complaining, just letting the webmasters know. Thanks for all your good work.

[webado]

You should only compare pageload numbers not unique/returning visitors (since those are based on cookies).

[graemep]

I only just installed SC4 on a low traffic site.

The recent visitor page shows 20 visitors, all from unique IPs, from 9 different countries, and about 15 different referring URLs, while the summary shows a visitor count of 3.

Visitor number count is definitely FAR too LOW.

Incidentally, webado. the errors caused by reliance on cookies and IPs should make the count HIGHER.

[cubo2005]

The opposite is happenign to me since yesterday. The odd thing is that the download counter is not counting well: it always calls twice, as it were. I see every download registered twice, even the clock time is the same. Why?

[webado]

Can't tell without seeing the page where you have it.

[Omomyid]

Why is this marked as resovled? It doesn't look like the visitor data is any better today than it has been in SC4

[webado]

Because it has been resolved.

There is one very probable reason why you may be seeing different results and it will be due to the visitors's security settings.

They might be allowing some of the Statcounter servers and disallowing others. The the one they disallow won't pick them up. If that's the serevr handling the sc4 project then you will see differences like this.

[Car Guy]

There is one very probable reason why you may be seeing different results and it will be due to the visitors's security settings.

They might be allowing some of the Statcounter servers and disallowing others. The the one they disallow won't pick them up. If that's the serevr handling the sc4 project then you will see differences like this.

In my case it's not just that some visitors aren't picked up, and some aren't, but I am seeing one counter record a greatly different number of pages for the same visitors.

Example: I am still seeing SC3 record 4 page loads from the same visitor that SC4 records 15!

As I have place SC4 below the existing SC3 script as instructed, if the visitor was hitting the back button before the page completely loaded, then the SC3 counts would be higher.

I have another site that I have placed 2 SC3 scripts on, and they match exactly.

Richard

[webado]

I am only using sc4 on one site and there the difference is negligible.
Yesterday it showed the same number of hits for sc3 and sc4. Today sc4 has 2 hits more than sc3, and I expect they would be exit links or downloads.

[nothingwrongwithme]

You should only compare pageload numbers not unique/returning visitors (since those are based on cookies).I'm not sure I understand. So it's normal for SC4 to only count pageloads and not count visitors at all?

[webado]

It's always pageloads that are logged.

In summary stats visitors (new vs returning) are inferred from the absence or presence of a cookie on the visitor's computer when they laod the page. The same physical visitor may be visiting with different IPs but from the same compter and browser and if this visitor has the cookie then it's a return vistitor otherwise, regardless fo IP, it's counted as a new visitor.

In detailed stats reports visitors are simply reported as the individual distinct IP addresses that have performed pageloads, regardless of cookies they may have had or not. This need not correspond to the numbers shown in summary stats, and usually it doesn't correspond.

Here are 2 extreme cases:

1) Say your summary stats show 500 hits for today, and 500 new visitors and 0 returning. You check the detailed stats (Visitor paths) and you see only one IP with 500 pageloads. This means this visitor doesnt' accept cookies, so when he loads a page, he is not recognized as returning so he will be counted as new every time for sumamry stats.

2) Say your sumamry stats show 500 htis for today and 1 unique visitor and 0 returning. You check detailed stats (visitor paths) and find 500 different IP's (so this looks like 500 differnt visitors), each with one single pageload. This means it was one single actual visitor with a different IP address for every pageload - a very common occurrence from ISP's such as AOL. But this visitor woudl have accepted and retained the cookie given by Statcounter whihc is why for summary stats he's recognized as being the same unique visitor logged the first time and for all the subsequent hits. If he came back the next day that would a returning visitor (but still only one, no matter how many hits from him).



In general your actual activity will be a mix . Since the log is fixed in size, you can only verify the hits which are in there vs the summary stats when the summary stats show now more then (say) 500 pageloads for the day, so you still have all of them in the log. Otherwise you cannot verify exhaustively what is happening.

[nothingwrongwithme]

Thanks for the detailed answer and I think I understand what you're saying, but in the summary stats the new statcounter is not counting visitors at all, or only a very very few. It only counts pageloads. The difference cannot be accounted for by cookies because it's so huge:
Old statcounter:
http://www.nothingwrongwithme.com/images/stacounter1dec17.gif
New beta:
http://www.nothingwrongwithme.com/images/statcounterdec17.gif

[webado]

You have 237 and 233 hits respectively. So the htis are counted OK.

The rest will be due to cookies, whether you like it or not.

[rotarysteve]

greetings,

I can understand the sc4 numbers being lower since the sc4 code is only on two pages, as opposed to the sc3 on all pages, but no/rare uniques or return visitors.

Also, I notice that when I do sign into sc4 it does show uniques/returns, but after logging out and coming back later, those uniques/returns are no longer accounted for.

Just a fyi.... all urls to be toasted soon.

pulled url

temp image, url to be toasted very soon.

associated stats

Page Loads Unique Visitors First Time Visitors Returning Visitors
Total 271 4 4 0
Average 34 1 1 0

Day Date Page Loads Unique Visitors First Time Visitors Returning Visitors
Tuesday 18th December 2007 103 0 0 0
Monday 17th December 2007 105 4 4 0
Sunday 16th December 2007 28 0 0 0
Saturday 15th December 2007 35 0 0 0
Friday 14th December 2007 0 0 0 0
Thursday 13th December 2007 0 0 0 0
Wednesday 12th December 2007 0 0 0 0
Tuesday 11th December 2007 0 0 0 0


pulled urls

temp image, also to be toasted very very soon

associated stats

Page Loads Unique Visitors First Time Visitors Returning Visitors
Total 785 442 225 217
Average 98 55 28 27

Day Date Page Loads Unique Visitors First Time Visitors Returning Visitors
Tuesday 18th December 2007 134 72 35 37
Monday 17th December 2007 131 72 29 43
Sunday 16th December 2007 33 22 18 4
Saturday 15th December 2007 37 19 14 5
Friday 14th December 2007 134 69 33 36
Thursday 13th December 2007 80 55 24 31
Wednesday 12th December 2007 131 68 36 32
Tuesday 11th December 2007 105 65 36 29

[linFox]

I'm also seeing the same sort of thing with my beta project, there really is something wrong.

This is my sc3 right now:
http://www.linfoxdomain.com/images/misc/scb4im/graph_summary_barchart2.png

And this is my sc4 right now (I reset the project yesterday, which didn't fix it. There's a pic from the day before below):
http://www.linfoxdomain.com/images/misc/scb4im/graph_summary_barchart3.png
http://www.linfoxdomain.com/images/misc/scb4im/graph_summary_barchart1.png

I know that there's no way it can be any sort of IP blocking or cookies, and as you can see from the last graph, it by started itself a while back (there were no changes made from before then until now).

I think that there's something wiping the uniques/returns every couple pageloads. When I reset my sc4 yesterday, I watched it for a while. After a few seconds it showed alright numbers (20 pageloads, 10 uniques and about 4 returns), then I refreshed and the uniques had gone down to 1 and the returns were 0 (pageloads were and still are fine). The same thing happened for the whole time time watched - a little up, then gone.

[rotarysteve]

pulled out urls.........

[nothingwrongwithme]

Whatever the problem was, it's now fixed, at least in my project. SC4 is now counting visitors as well as pageloads.

[rotarysteve]

working for me as well........

thanks!!!!

[caretakers]

Hello!
Reading your notes from the 12th and 14th, where you to found differences.

Let me explain that we have a small website with low volume. First we noticed some variance before. But today I notice a big gap. The old site counter is logging 15 or more hits than the beta.

[rotarysteve]

the sc4 seems completely down for now. They'll get it sorted out soon, I'm sure.

I have also noticed differences in counts between sc3 and sc4. Both seem to miss hits that the other does record. Part of that may be because that anywhere through the internet, the hit could be lost.