Awstats/Webalizer query

[Ross1982]

Hi,

My awstats says I have had over 200k uniques since my site started properly on the 17th of this month

http://www.freephotoserver.com/file...73_68696082.jpg

But my Webalizer stats seem to say's a lot less, unles I am missing something?

http://www.freephotoserver.com/file...52_25935601.jpg

Thanks

 

[Vivvy]

Hi,

My awstats says I have had over 200k uniques since my site started properly on the 17th of this month

http://www.freephotoserver.com/file...73_68696082.jpg

But my Webalizer stats seem to say's a lot less, unles I am missing something?

http://www.freephotoserver.com/file...52_25935601.jpg

Thanks

I've had that same problem between awstats and urchin. What I discovered was that awstats goes a much shorter time between what it considers unique visitors. So for instance, my urchin 5 will only count someone as they enter the page once in about a several hour stretch, where awstats was counting them again as unique after only 30 minutes. One other problem I found as well may be whether or not bot visits are being counted as uniques.

A lot of hosts use awstats because it is open source ... but free isn't always good. I've never been a fan of awstats... but i'm anal about accuracy.

Vivvy

 

[GiantDomains]

Also see how they count unique visits, ie: if you have a visit from 11:30 pm to 1:31 am thats one visit in the monthly stats, and 2 visits in the daily stats, etc..

I use both webalizer and awstats but have not had the time to look at their differences. Awstats gives more info though as far as referrers, which I like.

 

[Ross1982]

Yes, I like the referrers and add to favourites estimation that Awstats has, but would like to be certain about the uniques I am getting as I am also precise about that too.

I know I am getting a fair few, but when one says one thing and another other I wanna find out about it.

Any other good stat programs I could use? Pref free or one that is cheap.

But I would think in this instance Webalizer would be the more accurate?

 

[Vivvy]

you can't go wrong if you quote the smaller number to a potential buyer or advertiser for instance, because it's going to be the most credible, and if they don't like the webalizer number you can whip out the awstats figure!

Vivvy

 

[pelican]

personally i dont like awstats stats. i prefer webalizer.

 

[Ross1982]

So yesterday on first day of month, Webalizer said I got just below 5k and Awstats says over 13k

That's a big difference.

I got a reply from support

I was aware that some disparity is normal, but I've never seen such a
wide difference in stats accounting. It's most likely something in the
way the analyzers determine what constitute 'unique' visitors. I think
your best bet is to just choose a stats program for trend analysis as he
suggests and then if you want to have an absolute count of how many
unique visitors you receive on a daily basis you can install a counter
script for that so you have more control over what will be reported as a
unique visitor.

Doesn't help much, telling me to get a stats program myself to count uniques.

But I might as well, anyone know which I should get?

 

[Moondancer]

Your best bet is to get Urchin 5 or something like it for better accuracy. If you're lucky your web host offers it free, but most don't so it will cost a bit of money. Some hosts offer it for a small monthly fee as well. If you are building these sites to sell and are making a bit of money at it, it would be worth your while to invest in accurate stats.

 

[GiantDomains]

Your best bet is to get Urchin 5 or something like it for better accuracy.

I have that too, but it's not enabled. My host gives me about 5 to use. Is that one good?

 

[Moondancer]

Well, to be perfectly honest, Vivvy uses it more than I do but yeah, it's pretty accurate. It also breaks things down into users/bots/domains/countries/click thrus and so forth very nicely. I have webalizer, stats from the cms I use, and Urchin... Urchin comes down somewhere between the two with webalizer being on the low side and the cms on the high side. Webalizer is great for just a quick look at things, but it's not all that accurate, the cms counts every click as 1 visit, lol, so it's not accurate at all. Urchin does a good job of it and more.

 

[Theo]

Awstats is more accurate. That's from my personal experience.

 

[Moondancer]

I have to admit I don't have any experience with AWStats. How much better than Urchin would it be?

 

[mmkrulz]

I have to admit I don't have any experience with AWStats. How much better than Urchin would it be?

Might not be better at all than Urchin 5 since it is paid, but AWStats is better in my experience than WebAlizer.

 

[Moondancer]

I wouldn't doubt that it's better than Webalizer,which is why we offer Urchin5 as well, lol.

 

[mmkrulz]

I wouldn't doubt that it's better than Webalizer,which is why we offer Urchin5 as well, lol.

WebAlizer is the worst though, in my personal experiece, AWStats is much easier for me to understand, everything is so right up front, the hits, the uniques, etc.

 

[Ross1982]

Yesterday Awstats said I had just over 30k uniques and Webalizer said 8k

Something is wrong, I need another one to install to see what that says.

I think the Webalizer thing is more accurate tho.

 

[GT Web]

I like AWStats more...it is simpler, looks prettier and I have found it to be more accurate when it comes to daily/monthly stats...