28 March 2012

Blogger Stats vs. Google Analytics - Report Very Different Values

This is follow up post on Using Google Analytics with Blogger Tutorial. I encourage everyone to use Google Analytics instead of Blogger Stats however when people make the switch the first question everyone asks is why is there such a big difference/drop in Google Analytics stats versus Blogger Stats. In particular the Blogger stats shows much larger number for page views than Google Analytics.

Before I go into details, I like to point out that Google Analytics is showing the "more" correct statistics of user activity on your blog.

The major difference in statistics between Google Analytics and Blogger Stats comes from the method they use to track page views and visitors. Google Analytics uses a more accurate method by setting a cookie on the user's browser which means the user is most likely to be a real user as opposed to an automate computer program.
There are many automated computer programs that visit your blogs on regular basis(known as bots) that fetch your content in order to create an index for search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Google Analytics will not recognize these as valid visits whereas Blogger Stats counts each one of these as a valid visit. Aside from search engines viewing your blog there are many other automated programs that are designed for spamming and email harvesting that visit your blog. These visits are added up to your Blogger Stats, therefore inflating your ego visitor numbers.

If you have previously used solutions other than Blogger Stats, other factors can contribute to a difference in numbers such as their use of third party images or third party cookies. Some statistic-collection websites place a small image on your blog such as a counter or their logo or even a transparent image. Every time that image is loaded a "hit" or "page view" is recorded on their servers. Whereas Google Analytics only counts a "visit" to the same page if it's not within the same 30 minutes.

It's also worth knowing that some security programs such as firewalls and anti-viruses change the settings of your browser to stop these third party images from loading which means even more incorrect statistics are recorded.

Also, it is worth pointing out that Blogger Stats will record your visits to your own blog. So disabling this feature is a great help toward getting more consistent statistics across Blogger Stats and Google Analytics, even though Google Analytics also records your visits to your own blog. You can find the procedure on how to disable tracking your own visits to your blog below however since the country code domain name changes have gone live, disabling tracking will not be as accurate as it was before the top level domain name changes.

You can find more information on this topic via the Google Help pages.

Stop Tracking your own views
For bloggers that have very popular blogs, it will not make a noticeable difference whether you track your own visits to your blog or not. However if your blog doesn't get that many views then your own visits could account for a large portion of page views on your blog. Hence it is important to stop tracking your own views in Blogger Stats. So:

1. Go to your Blog dashboard
2. Click on "Stats" (Overview)
3. Click on "Don't track your own pageviews" as shown in the screenshot below


4. You will be presented with a popup, select the "Don't track my pageviews" option.


5. Click "Save"

and you're done!


If you'd like to be updated on new blog posts please subscribe to my RSS feed and/or via email.

87 comments:

  1. Sir i have a wordpress site www.bestways.org.pk
    google analytics is working but not showing real time visits.
    Can u help me in resolving this problem.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do the stats show correctly after a 24 hour period?

      Delete
  2. Great post, really informative :) xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. hi,
    Thank you so much for such an informative and nice post. I have a blog crazy4db.blogspot.in which I created on march 4 and have around 2o posts. I have created an google analytics account on 21 April. But did not see any statistics after the creation of this account. I followed the same steps. Is there anything wrong or will it take while after which the stat will appear? Please guide.
    Best Regards
    ==prashant

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. your blog is using one of the new templates so the only thing you have to is enter your google "analytics web property id" which can be found under "Settings"> "Other"

      Delete
  4. Hi Jenson,
    One more piece of information I would like to know from you if you have any idea, is there any minimum period for which the blog should exist before I apply for an adsense presence on my blogspot blog. Also is there any minimum number of pageviews per day/week/month for the eligibility. My request was turned down recently without any reasons and I am clueless about the same. Would I be able to apply again and after what duration?
    Thanks for your time
    ==prashant

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Google doesn't release the exact details of requirements for joining the adsense program but I would recommend to have a blog that is at least 6 months old with a lot of content. Keep the blog nice and clean and without any clutter then re-apply again.

      Delete
    2. Thank you so much Jenson, the trick on analytics did work. Also thanks for your advice on adsense joining.
      best regards

      Delete
    3. Dear Jenson,
      I do not think a '6 month old with lot of content' is an essential requirement for being admitted to AdSense. I have started a blog (http://www.wisdomspot.org) at which the first post was published on 26.10.2014. Only seven posts have been published so far. But I have been allowed to join AdSense nearly a month ago when the age of my blog was less than two months and the number posts was just five. May be the fact that I have my own domain id might have helped. I think the first part of your answer that Google does not disclose the parameters they use in assessing eligibility is more in line with the reality. Incidentally, I came here looking for an explanation for statistical mismatch. I think I have found my answer.
      Thanks & Regards,
      kutty

      Delete
  5. Thanks a lot Jenson, I have noticed that the total number of pageviews reported in blogger stats doesn't match the result of adding the pageviews of each individual post. This is when I started searching for an explanation and your blog answers my questions. So it is the bots which are causing the total count to increase but the individual pageviews count doesn't increase.
    May be adding up the individual pageviews of each post in blogger stats would be closer to the number from google analytics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That could be the case, thanks for your input.

      I find things a lot clearer with Google Analytics because you know exactly what stats you're looking at.
      Visits?
      Unique Visitors?
      Pageviews?

      Delete
    2. hey, how to go about finding unique visitors?
      thanks !

      Delete
  6. Thanks for this post and the information!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I started my blog http://www.yawkeyreport.com a few months back and I use GA and Blogger stats but the numbers are never close to eachother. I've started to focus more on GA as I find the stats more reasonable and obviously more detailed.

    Also, I've found that programs like twitterfeed have skewed my GA stats because of the shortened links for some reason, any advice on that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have also used twitter-feed however it should not make any difference to your GA stats, apart from the source from which the page views are coming from.

      Delete
  8. Great post. Thanks for the insight into a common issue that Google hasn't addressed clearly.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you! Although yes my ego is hurt ;)

    ReplyDelete
  10. how can I add GA stats to my blog? Thanks.
    -paula

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for this piece of information. I have a question i want to ask if you dont mind
    I have started a blog 4 months old, it has now 107 post. The link to my post is www.bulkbloggers.com the problem i m facing is that in blogger i recive 60 pageveiw easily but in GA its only in 20s line. I have also disabled counting my own pageveiws. The traffic is so low and in infolinks i dont get much clicks and the amount i recive on 1 click is $0.01 or sometimes nothing. Can u please help me
    Thanks in advance

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The statistics in GA are correct because GA does not count bots as visits.
      What you are explaining is perfectly fine.
      What do you need me to help you with?

      Delete
    2. The help i need is that to ask that the payment i have receiving normal or it is only in my case. Plus also the traffic i m reciving is also very low,can u please have a look at.my blog and tell me that if i m kissing anything?
      Thanks for replying

      Delete
    3. I just wanna ask you that please take a look at my blog and tell me that the traffic i m reciving is normal or what.....and some tips for improving my blog and income

      Delete
    4. 1. The payment you are receiving is normal. Although I don't use infolinks or the other advertising platform that you are using, I know that those type of ads have a very low return so this is perfectly normal. I would recommend using Google Adsense in order to achieve better income from ads instead of the platforms that you are currently using.

      2. The traffic being low is natural. You must keep a website updated with interesting topics that a lot of people want to visit in order to get more visitors. This is something that is not going to happen overnight. It takes a lot of effort and time(think years) before your visitor numbers reach the levels that you are hoping for.

      My only advice is to
      1. be patient and continue working on your website for years.

      2. do not put too many advertisement links on your website because your blog will end up looking like a spam website.

      3. create good content that people would like to read about. Once enough people visit your blog then introduce advertising but try to have only one single exclusive advertiser to avoid degrading the quality of your website.

      I hope this helps.

      Delete
    5. Thank you very much for your help
      The reason i m not applying adsence is low traffic and time
      And one last question is that what do you say about my current content. Is it interesting?

      Delete
    6. yes, anything you write about will be interesting for some people. Write about whatever YOU find interesting and rest assure that there are a lot of people like you who share the same interests.

      Delete
  12. Way to kill my ego... Thanks though, this was a great helpful article.

    ReplyDelete
  13. really nice blogs and useful information thanks

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi..I have a blog ultimatesolutionz.blogspot.in .My Google analytic stats is not updating. It is showing the same results every time. Why is it like that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you probably have the same number of visitors everyday.

      Delete
  15. Nice information.

    However I have got an unique problem: Google Analytics seem only to track the hits from mobile devices...

    I have got not a singular hit from a PC or Mac [however the blogger stats show me that most hits are from PCs and Macs - Internet Explorer and Firefox and Safari App].

    Strange?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. my suspicion is that the GA code has not been included correctly on the desktop template.

      There are two templates in use on blogger, one for mobile devices and another one for desktops. The only logical explanation would be that your blog's desktop template is not working correctly with Google Analytics.

      Delete
  16. I can't find any more of my stats. I used to really love to see who was visiting my blog and from which parts of the world. Any advice?
    They are gone!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. on google analytics or on blogger stats?

      Delete
  17. For don't track your own page view, the IP address displayed is not right. In your screen shot it is 17.0.963.83. The maximum value is 255, 963 is invalid. Something is so wrong where they put the dots.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hahahahahhaaaa... that's not the IP address, that's the version of my browser.

      Delete
  18. I see there was a comment already about mobile, but I want to stop tracking my own page views when I view my blog from the Blogger iOS app. Know of any way?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No. There is two things that you can do to tackle this problem:

      1. Find out if the app makes use of your mobile browser's cookies. If it does then all you have to do is add the appropriate cookie.

      2. Ask the app developers to for this feature.

      I don't use apple products so I can not provide you with any solution. sorry.

      Delete
  19. Very informative. I used to have 1000 visitor from my blogspot blog stats. In Analytics it is showing only 200 ! But I realized that analytics is much accurate. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  20. I have this Facebook Games Review blog (http://facebook-games-review.blogspot.com) and I've also activated Google Analytics Tracking, but for some reason, the Google Analytics stat remains at 1, while my blogger stats go up. I asked some of my friends to check the site, but GA doesn't seem to record? O.o

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe if you're using the new templates, the only thing you need to do is to add your GA id in the blogger settings and the rest will be taken care of. Unless you have modified your blog extensively.

      Delete
  21. So that's why i got hundreds visitors in my first day according to blogger . But in GA i have zero. Lol.
    Just started blogging and i'm still in the dark about these things
    thanks for the post btw it's really helpful. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It takes 24 hours for GA stats to appear.

      Delete
  22. Hi there, I have my blog for 1 week and have a big issue with getting accuate info about my pageviews. Just for 4-5 hours last night i got over 1000 pageviews from different countries and browsers. That's what my blogger stats say. However GA says that i have only ... 5. Another tracking program says I have 16. I shared a link of my blog in a forum and that's the main traffic source according to blogger stats. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. well, it's expected that GA shows less hits. Also, it takes GA 24 hours to show the updated stats.
      The stats should always be treated relative to previous performances, not as an explicit measure of exact number of users that viewed a website. So don't be too hung up on number of views.

      Delete
  23. Thanks, this is quite enlightening! Appreciate it, despite the blow to me ego, lol! I would rather know the truth.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hi there, this is a really useful and interesting topic. You said "you can install the appropriate plugin for your browser to block your activities from Google Analytics". Can you please let me know how I can get the plugin? I've got a macbook.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Here's something I was curious about: when someone gets content through an RSS feeder, does that show up as a hit? (I only look at the Blogger stats, because it's just a personal blog.) I've never used RSS, so I don't know how it works but my impression was that it puts all the content in an email (or reader), which would mean the person would never have to click through to the actual entry - is that right?

    I was also curious as to whether I could *stop* seeing my stats; with the old dashboard I never saw them and was content. Now that I can't avoid them, I get obsessed about whether anybody is reading and it's annoying (as it's just another reason to concentrate on external factors). Do you know if there's a way to customize the dashboard so that I don't see statistical information?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If someone clicks through from an RSS feed to your blog then you will see the hit. Depending on how your RSS is configured you will be able to see which hits are sources from your rss feed.

      Generally speaking, if someone views your content solely through an RSS feed, you will not be able to see any stats. This is not necessarily bad. The most common approach among RSS feeds is that only the first portion of each post is displayed then if a user finds that post interestin s/he will click through to your blog to read the full article which will register as a hit on your blog.

      You can stop your own views registering on Google analytics using an addon for your brower or by specifically filtering your own IP address out of the stats (only do this if you have a static IP address)

      Delete
  26. Hi, Thanks for the Article but I am still experiencing the same problem after having disabled this option. When I check my blog my personal views still get recorded any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe your browser is blocking cookies.

      Delete
  27. Thanks for sharing, it's useful information

    ReplyDelete
  28. A pin-point Information. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Thanks for this nice information.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Still not convinced...

    We had a 'big day' today on our blog. 70 comments were left, blogger shows 2800 views, google analytics showed up to 42 visits (real time) simultanously and that continued throughout the day...

    But at the end of the day only 80 (vs 2800!) views were tracked in Google Analytics...

    Sorry, but I am not buying it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you sure you have setup Google Analytics to work with any country domain? because blogger will change the top level country domain based on which country your blog is accessed from.

      Which part are you not buying?

      What do you believe to be the correct number of visits?

      Delete
  31. Thanks for your article, I had noticed a difference for sometime.

    I have moved to only using Google analytics for my blog stats now.

    Richard

    ReplyDelete
  32. I have a question. I understand that Analytics doesn't track robot visits, which is great, but for example, on the day that I got the most visitors I had ever gotten on my blog (there was a particular post that lots of people interacted with), Analytics said I only got 2 views. I'm pretty sure I got more than two views that day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It can take up to 24 hours for analytics to get updated with the latest stats, so perhaps if you go back and look again then it might have a higher number.
      Also, you must be aware that some people including me do not allow their visits to be recorded by Google Analytics.
      The important factor when looking at stats is trends and comparisons to previous data. Do not get too concerned with explicit view numbers.

      Delete
  33. Likely, the most helpful piece I've seen on this - - great work.

    As one of your other readers suggested, I find the blogger stats for a particular post not so far off the GA tally (and if its a 'hit' on GA, its usually a 'hit' on blogger).

    But yes -- the reports of overall pageviews is too high on blogger stats. (In fact I've noticed the number of total pageviews reported by blogger stats for my blog in the last three weeks has gone wild. They basically doubled or tripled - even while the pageviews for new posts over the last three weeks is about the same.) Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Nice and Informative Post..
    I would Like to rise my question which is quite unusual but may be one here would answer it in best way.
    I have configured Both GA and Sharepoint 2010 Web Analytic. Both working fine but problems originates from the point where both Analytis services shows different UsersView result.

    GA said in 40000
    SP WEB Analytic Said in 20000

    Now what is wrong and where is wrongggggggg............

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. counting views on websites is not an exact science. Because some views are made by automatic crawlers as opposed to real human users so the explicit number depends on how views are calculated.
      Nevertheless you should not be looking at explicit numbers but trends instead. Once you start doing that you will realize that it is highly likely that both tools report the same trends despite the difference in numbers.

      Delete
  35. So disappointed to know about the truth. I thought my blog has been viewed more than 100,000 times, but actually it's less than 1,000. That's disappointment to the orders of 100.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Great post, thanks. I've been tracking stats for my own personal enjoyment via blogger's stats page and I've often wondered if that many people were really reading my content. Particularly my top read blog entry because, to be honest, it's not even close to the most talked about entry on G+ or even an interesting entry. It is however, entitled "Forum Following and Blog Growth" so I imagine it's mainly getting hits from search sites not people that are actually reading it.

    I think I might switch to GA I set up an account. The only hassle now will be going through over a 100 entries and adding the code to each one! Oh well, it might end up being worth it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You don't need to go through 100 entries. You only need to put it once in the template or in the blogger settings.

      Delete
  37. Hi there! Very informative post, thank you very much.

    But the thing I have noticed is that, there are select number of posts in Blogger stats which have more view count than rest of the other posts.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Hi there Jenson! First of all I would like to thank you again for such a helpful post for all of us here, who don't know anything about these technical aspects particularly when it comes to SEO and the other stuff. I have understood something now about the stat things when I started to use Google Analytics. In Google Analytics if we take the readings from Network, it shows actually who visited your blog exactly, with all the other details precisely.

    Also I want to mention here that I have a few select number of posts which have more blogger stats than Analytics stats, I think the reason might be the posts have good links to my post and that in turn showing up in Blog stats as view counts which are not actually the visits to the blog, but the links lying out there in forums or other websites. May be the bots when crawling the web finding links on away sites and adding it up in the Blog stats, that's why I have some posts which have more view counts than others, that I can clearly see the difference why those stats are swelling up, i;e., may be due to the external links the posts have got and not due to the actual visitors to the blog. Thank you so much again !

    ReplyDelete
  39. Hi there, I have just created my analytics account, and am really new to blogging. Having read the above, I understand analytics is more 'real', however my blogger shows I have 5730 hits from creation to present, and analytics says I have had only one visitor. Is there something I should activate within analytics setup, or can this be true? Thanking you for advice in advance. Thanking you for all the info to be found here, was most insightful, s.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 5730 hits you are getting on blogger are probably more than the number of real humans who come to your blog but the fact that you only have one visitor on GA means there is some problem in your google analytics setup.

      How did you setup google analytics for your blog? did you enter the id using the blogger's settings page or did you insert the code from google analytics in your template?

      Have you stopped tracking your own views in Blogger? This would help give you more realistic numbers in Blogger.

      Delete
  40. Hi Jenson, thank you for your reply. I have just found the easiest way to create analytics on blogger, is to convert my template to dynamic views. Looking forward to seeing what they have to report within next 24hrs.

    Thanking you again for your response, s

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just note that the stats run about 24 hours behind, so depending on your timezone it might take slightly less or more or to see the changes.

      Delete
  41. Hi Jenson,
    A very good post. Got the difference between the two and thanks for posting this.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Would it be normal for the blogger stats to show 6+ million hits and GA to show 82,000? Seems vastly different. 6 million bots?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Would it be normal to have the blogger stats reporting 6+ million views while GA reports 82,000? Seems like such a vast difference. 6 million bots - is that a normal amount?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, that doesn't seem normal. My guess is that most your views comes from the mobile template which you haven't incorporated GA in or you are using the dynamic templates which only register one view even though visitors might view multiple blog posts.
      However the most likely scenario is that there is problem with google analytics integration on your blog.

      Delete
  44. i have recently stared writing i have near about 20blog but the my total visitor number is 400 , in the blogger overview from the various parts but google analytics is show not a single visitor. any problem google analytics setup. or no one is visiting my blog?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. this is probably a problem with your google analytics setup

      Delete
  45. not a single visitor in google analytics but blogger dash board is showing nearly 500 visitor in different part of the world.

    ReplyDelete
  46. I have a blog and which showed over 1200 visitors in a specific day, but analytic is showing me that in that specific day I had only 2 visitors!! Isn't it very very strange? What is causing this big big difference? Please let me know.
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Why my google analyctics showing more than blogspot stats, I have disabled everything.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Hi !
    My don't track my views option is on but still it records my pageviews & my browser is set to accept cookies. Now where's the problem- please help.

    ReplyDelete
  49. On the welcome screen (also "overview" tab) I have a graph with daily page views. When I click the "more stats" link (to "stats: overview") that same graph appears but with pageviews that are about 20x lower. Is that normal? Sign of a problem? THANKS!

    ReplyDelete