Which gives better stats, Google Analytics or my web host?

This is a great question that comes up pretty frequently -- I was a webmaster at a fortune 500 site and had to explain this frequently. The correct answer is you want to use both as a guideline tool for tracking trends. You have to know how your hosts analytic (awstats, webalizer, webtrends, etc) packages work versus a the page tracker packages (google, hitlinks,etc).

Your host uses a logfile analyzer. Every single request (which is text, images, stylesheets, etc. ) is logged into the log files and then crunched out. This will count spiders, search engines, multiple users as equal, but some users won't make a request for certain file types and some will.

You may get a web spider come and slurp up a bunch of text. You may have 10 users using the same corporate IP address. Pages could be cached on a computer or a proxy.

These could all adjust your results one way or another. The other google analytics programs embed a small bit of code written in javascript. This code is tied to a unique computer via a cookie.

The issue comes when I block either javascript or cookies. Browsers are tracked, not users or IP addresses. The biggest factor between the two though is that the page tracking code isn't executed by a web spider.

I've written quite a few spiders -- they make a request and save the page's text so the code to is never executed -- but the logfile still was written. Hope that helps.

No one web analytics tool will give you absolute values. Google Analytics will differ from the data you get from your host because they probably use different methods to evaluate what a visit it, what a hit is, etc... The best option is to use two or more web analytics tools and compare the values. In the long run you will get a much better perspective.

I'd recommend reading this forum topic to get different people's opinions (web masterworld) . I don't think either tool offers a 100% best accurate stats so if you want to choose one it basically boils down to what you want.

Depends on what service your host uses, but I like google because it give features nice graphs and charts as well as the integration with google searches and how people get to your site is far more advanced than what other stat programs show.

Well, we've had some major calculation problems with Google Analytics on Mahalo for a while now, so I wouldn't want them. I've heard a lot of good stuff about HostGator from many people who looked into it. Not too sure about AWStats though, but I'd still recommend it over Google Analytics.

If paying a little money wasn't an issue I would vote for haveamint.com/ just simply amazing. There are demos, screen shots over there.

There are many ones web stat programs out there and the best answer is to use multiple. I use the webhost, Google Analytics and the free version of Stat Counter. The more information you have the more accurate your result.

It depends on what you want out of the data. GA will give most people what they need up to the mid-size bisness unless you are a eCommerce company. GA is free and really amazing at what it can do and yet be free.

I use it daily and have had great luck!

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