Hi again.

 I have just one more question on Google Analytics, and it concerns the 'Visitor Tracking' status area.  Since getting GA up and running, the other day, I have notification of ten visits to my site.  That is a small number, I know, but I am also knowing of the fact that it references more than one unique visitor.  However, GA lists just one 'unique' visitor for me.  I would like to know if the same is showing for other users.

What is your definition of unique visitor?  That's not a flippant question.

You might find these GA FAQs interesting reading:

What's the difference between clicks, visits, unique visits, etc...

Why does google analytics report different numbers than other analytics solutions?

In the end, really, you're going to need to get used to the idea that tracking of visits and visitors is an inexact science by the very nature of how the HTTP protocol works.  Every analytics solution provider on the planet will (if you dig deep enough) end up telling you that you shouldn't count on exact numbers, but should treat website statistics as just that: statistics for trend analysis.

Treating them as anything else inevitably invites madness.  I speak from personal experience with use of several different analytics solutions (including having written several of them), on sites with visits ranging from hundreds per month to millions per week.

Use the trend lines; they will tell you the health of your site.  Use the numbers as fodder for statistics.  Don't quibble over the difference and origin of 101 vs. 102.  Accept that just as with opinion polls, any statistics tracking system on the internet is accurate to within +/- a percentage point or three. 

You'll end up much happier, trust me. 

 Hi Aaron.

 I had associated 'Unique visits' with 'New visits'.  It was my assumption that each new visitor would have been noted as such.   No, I did not expect truly exacting accounts of visits to my site, and am thankful to have what we do have - with GA.  Your explanation, as well as the provided links, has served to clarify a number of things, for me, and I really do appreciate that.

  Hi.

        Out of curiosity  I have been monitoring my GA and ZF stats . During the last ten days GA has recorded 22 unique as compared with ZF's 13 total site visits. This is more than the few percentage points that will drive you mad.

        I have the impression that accessing a page (other than the homepage) via google does not record on ZF.  Is this correct?

         There is certainly some differences between site and page counting. For example, if I am not logged in, then  the individual image counters on my site count my own visits when the site counter ignores me, This point I have raised several times before, but without any response other  than a posting  recounting the same experience.  It seems to me to be  an important thing to change or am I missing something ?  It certainly has completely invalidated my image stats.  Can I also repeat my suggestion for the option to reset one's image counters?  Though my desire to have this feature is largely as a result of the counting problem.

 thanks as always

Jem

Jem Hopkins Photography | Natural Art

jemhopkinsphotography:

  Hi.

        Out of curiosity  I have been monitoring my GA and ZF stats . During the last ten days GA has recorded 22 unique as compared with ZF's 13 total site visits. This is more than the few percentage points that will drive you mad.

        I have the impression that accessing a page (other than the homepage) via google does not record on ZF.  Is this correct?
     

Complete guess here so take it for what it's worth:

Could it be that GA computes the site owner's visits under "edit mode" as opposed to ZF which doesn't count those in "edit mode"?

jemhopkinsphotography:

        Out of curiosity  I have been monitoring my GA and ZF stats . During the last ten days GA has recorded 22 unique as compared with ZF's 13 total site visits. This is more than the few percentage points that will drive you mad.

I don't intimately know the specifics of Zenfolio's inhouse visit algorithm, but I honestly don't have a great deal of confidence in it.  Which, of course, is why I was among those who first started pushing for Google Analytics.  I'm not even going to bother comparing the results of the two; it's worse than comparing apples to oranges.  It's like comparing apples to starburst candies; there is really not a common frame of reference between how the two gather and count numbers.

From the point where GA became available to me, I began to completely ignore the numbers that Zenfolio reports.

jemhopkinsphotography:

        I have the impression that accessing a page (other than the homepage) via google does not record on ZF.  Is this correct?

I'm really not sure what you mean here, so I have no answer for you.

jemhopkinsphotography:

         There is certainly some differences between site and page counting. For example, if I am not logged in, then  the individual image counters on my site count my own visits when the site counter ignores me, This point I have raised several times before, but without any response other  than a posting  recounting the same experience.  It seems to me to be  an important thing to change or am I missing something ?  It certainly has completely invalidated my image stats.  Can I also repeat my suggestion for the option to reset one's image counters?  Though my desire to have this feature is largely as a result of the counting problem.

Google Analytics offers a few mechanisms for preventing your own visits from registering in your statistics, but thus far Zenfolio has not made any of them available to its customers.  For me, the answer is simple; I don't view my own site as a visitor outside of the management interface, and therefore it's never a problem for me

 You want to try more than a few percentage points? I had about 150 hits on one of images in the last week, owing to its inclusion in the home page contest. On GA, this shows as about 3 visits per day. My hunch is that every hit referred from the zenfolio forums page is counted by GA as part of the same visit, even though they may come from different users.

mauricio23:

My hunch is that every hit referred from the zenfolio forums page is counted by GA as part of the same visit, even though they may come from different users.

I can guarantee that google analytics does not conglomerate requests into a single visit simply because they come from the same referring page. 

Okay, I'm going to stick my neck out here and ask a really stupid question, mainly because I am not that familiar with analytic programs. What purpose does the GA serve other than something else to take up a bunch of your time and drive you NUTS from what I've been reading? Does anyone really use it for anything other than just to see how many visits you've had on a curiosity level?

Carolyn Marshall:

Okay, I'm going to stick my neck out here and ask a really stupid question, mainly because I am not that familiar with analytic programs. What purpose does the GA serve other than something else to take up a bunch of your time and drive you NUTS from what I've been reading? Does anyone really use it for anything other than just to see how many visits you've had on a curiosity level?

Well, it depends on what you're looking to accomplish.  I use it to know how people get to my site, where they are, and what they look at when they're on my site.  I can then use that information to (for instance) tune my advertising.  I registered my photography business with google's local search results, and I used google analytics to decide whether that was a good move or not (it was), based on looking at traffic sources to my site.

It turns out that most people who find me through search engine queries are doing searches for a photographer near the city where I live.  Since my business pops up in the local business results list, people find it, and then come visit me, and then call me.  I've won a good amount of business this way, and I never would have been able to objectively and quantitatively say whether it was effective advertising for me without being able to see the effects through my google analytics trend statistics.

It's unfortunate that the google analytics integration for our accounts does not extend to the shopping cart. If it did, then you could use that integration to track visitors paths through your site, and determine which paths lead to sales, and which don't.

At the very least, you can use the integration to get an idea of what the most popular galleries and (depending on how you've got your pictures organized) categories of your work.

Thanks, Aaron, for the information. I had tried once before when I set up my blogspot blog to activate the Google Analytics. Once I got into it, it looked very invasive and very confusing when you don't know what you're doing. I know just enough about the technical side of everything to be dangerous. So, I was afraid to dig any deeper. What you say makes sense. Maybe I'll try it again.

 Then the other option is that the GA code is not on some of my pages. How do I look for it?