Google Analytics vs. Awstats

Posted on February 7, 2007 by Matt

Preface: In an effort to increase traffic to my site i’m actively monitoring my daily traffic for trends, fluctuation, etc. Now until recently I had relied only on Google Analytics to be my tool of choice. As of this past weekend I’ve begun using Awstats. What I’ve found in my short time using Awstats is that the numbers for my site were drastically different than what I was used to seeing using Google Analytics. That observation propted a few questions:

  • Might some users be missed by Google Analytics and seen by Awstats?
  • Perhaps Awstats is inflating my numbers?
  • Does Awstats count me as a unique user when I log in to tweak or post on my blog?
  • Which of the two is more accurate, and if neither are, what is a good alternative to get my desired data from?

Here are my numbers for 2/06/07:

Google Analytics Stats

vs.

AwStats

Ok let’s compare these numbers now:

Visits – GA 9 AW 208.
Pages – GA 17 AW 650.

How am I getting a number of visits that is 23 times greater with Awstats than the number I got with Google? Why are my pageviews 38 times greater with Awstats than google? This perplexes me because it’s not like its a difference of 30 pageviews or even 30 uniques, the difference is one value being about 30 times larger than the other!

A bit of investigation via Google got me some answers but not all. In regards to sites being missed by Google Analytics, I’ve found out that the use of the CustomizeGoogle plugin for Firefox allows users to block the cookie given by sites using Google Analytics. Why anyone would do this is beyond me. However, knowing that it is possible to block data from being sent to Google Analytics it can be assumed that stats from Google Analytics are potentially inaccurate.

Can someone please help me?

Posted in Blogging, SEO | 1 Comment

Big week and weekend!

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Matt

Ok, this has been a very eventful week! Let’s see where to start….

New Theme: I’ve been working on this theme for some time. Actually since around early December. Originally I had wanted to break the mold of using just some random theme I’d downloaded off of the internet. I decided to move the categories, recent posts, and archives up to the header to give me more room for other things on the sidebar.

Advertising: Yes, they are here now. They’re here to stay. Ok so there is a bit of a backstory to this. Around the first of the year I started looking into monetizing my site, or a way to start making money from having people visit the site. I’ve learned quite a bit and still have a ways to go. If I may thank David Lithman, Matt Coddington, and Tyler Cruz for all giving me pointers thus far, your help has been appreciated. I’m now using Google’s AdSense on my site, and also I’ve signed up for Text-Link Ads and I’m waiting for those to start taking off. I’ve signed up for YPN (Yahoo Publisher Network). Through talking to those folks, and doing a bit of research my site should be capable of making at least a bit of money through advertising. propstm.net currently has a pagerank of 4/10 which is decent. Let’s hope I can make a bit of money on the side.

propstm.net a UMPC-only blog: After a bit of thinking and discussing with people, I think that even though I am in love with the UMPC and everything that goes with it, I will be expanding the topics here. Surely you didn’t think UMPC’s are all i’m interested in 🙂 What will I be covering? Well wait and see!

Any reviews of the new layout are welcome!

Posted in Advertising, Blogging, Design | Comments Off on Big week and weekend!

BlueFur.com Review

Posted on February 1, 2007 by Matt

Upon first hearing “blue fur,” domain hosting probably isn’t the first thing to come to mind. However, BlueFur.com is just that. I’d first heard of Blue Fur from John Chow’s blog. A reliable source, interesting information, why not take a look. I think Blue Fur delivers. One of the best (or worst) things to happen to a site if for the “Digg Effect” to occur. John’s post mentioned Blue Fur withstanding the Digg effect. Hmm, maybe it’s something in the fur?

Another thing I really enjoy about Blue Fur, which makes them different from most hosting providers I’ve seen is that they’ve also got a blog. Now this blog is more than just “scheduled maintenance will occur from blah to blah.” Blue Fur’s blog includes the company updates you would expect, but also offers news to readers. News about better business solutions, news of updates to popular blogging software, news that if generally interesting!

So they’ve got a blog, and John Chow likes them, what else? Well if you’re in the market for a deal in hosting Blue Fur looks pretty decent. 1 and 2 year Unix hosting plans offer 15 and 20% off, respectively. Unix hosting also starts as low as $4.95 a month. If you’re looking for Microsoft hosting they’ve got that too, and from $6.95 a month. I didn’t go into it, but you get decent transfer amounts and SSL certs, all the important stuff you look for in a solid hosting plan.

Ok, so aside from having a great blog and good hosting rates, their blog is currently running a bit of a contest, the first 50 people to post a review of 300 words in length or greater, get a free .com, .net, or .org domain to register. If that isn’t a great deal on top of great hosting I’m not sure what is?

Posted in Blogging | 2 Comments

Samsung Q1 BACK ON WOOT!

Posted on February 1, 2007 by Matt

I never thought i’d see the day. This time only $749!

The Woot just finished.  i’m suprised the Q1’s still go so fast.  Here’s the final info:

Posted in UMPC | 1 Comment