Google Analytics versus my Host's Urchin Data?

[Thebes]

FWIW, I had to abandon Urchin, which I had used for years on my dedicated server, during a recent server move / upgrade. It has not really been developed since Google took it over and based GA on it, and it was no longer compatible with the newest version of my chosen server OS. If I had shared hosting which offered it, I might consider emailing their tech support to ask about long term support for it.

I really liked it before that. It always had different stats from other analytics packages I've ran but it was much more detailed, it showed about 10% lower than my other various stats packages. Urchin works best with the java code bits added into your pages, but provides truly excellent stats without it which is why I had used it.

Also, sometimes internet connectivity problems between a user's browser and google (normally the user's ISP) will significantly slow loading on pages with the google tracking code. This happens to me at least a few times a week, though if its a problem for a visitor they're probably use to it.

[artworksgallery]

I've found Google Analytics isn't very good at all.

Try downloading the free versions of Xlogan and Deep Log Analyzer, I use the first to collect the data from my server once a week and the second to analyse it.

This combination gives very accurate data for free, and it's extremely useful for showing where your visitors come from, which word strings in Search Engines. It also shows you which serach engines are crawling your site. It also shows me that a huge number of visitors are trying to access a Guestbook I removed more than 5 years ago.

Google Analytics doesn't use the actual log files from your site and so gives very false reports, it's is a useful tool though.

Ian

I'd have to second your motion for using something other than Analytics. As for offline log reading software, I'm not familiar with Deep Log ANalyzer but I have used "Surf Stats" for the same function.

If you want a quick counter/stats program that provides some decent detail, and is free, you can checkout statcounter.com...they offer a 'free' invisible counter you can add to your page. It's details also include referals, etc...it only works up to xx,xxx hits but they have upgrade paid versions if you like it.