Google Analytics - search traffic accuracy?
Does Google Analytics accurately report traffic coming from the various search engines?
I have been writing a report on a client over a one month time frame using data gathered from our log files. I was curious to see how that data stacked up against Google Analytics, and here's what I found:
- Google over-reported its own referrals, though just slightly.
Our log files showed 221 referrals. GA showed 227.
- Traffic from Yahoo was also over reported.
Our log files showed 59 referrals. GA showed 66.
- Traffic from MSN / LIVE wasn't even close to accurate... off by a longshot
Our log files showed 104 combined referrals. GA showed 43.
This raises several important questions... assuming that our log files accurately track the search engine referrals.
1) Does Google Analytics include Google.co.uk (and any other countries) in the "Google" category? If so, this could explain the slight over-reporting. (same with Yahoo...)
2) Why does GA fail to track MSN / LIVE search referrals? This is critical information to many companies, and really favors Google's business. If GA is reporting significantly less traffic from MSN and LIVE, companies might choose to not advertise on those engines - a decision based on false information.
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