Why we shouldn't use AWstats to measure marketing efforts?
-
and what are the disadvantages of awstats compared to Google Analytics?
-
I think the simple answer to this one is that Google Analytics is simply better. It provides way more functionality and the ability to actually track conversions, funnels and a whole lot more. AWStats gives you raw data almost, but Google Analytics allows you to make sense of it.
-
I use both AWStats and Analytics. I actually find the unique visits , hits,page views to be more accurate on AWstats than Google. However Google can provide more in depth analysis which is actually more useful. I also think that Google Analytics is heavily effected by the EU cookie directive, as when this arrived I noticed a drop in Analytics figures. For example page views on AWstats for one client shows 1000 people where google Analytics shows 600. We know that the AWstats figures are more accurate from the responses from the example page. However the 600 we can drill down the data to find where else the users visited and also how long etc... So AWstats in my view are for the headline figures and Analytics are for the analysts and number crunchers.
-
Pretty much agreed with Nakul and the reason is that AWstats might not provide you the tons and tons of data those Google Analytics posses in it.
Obviously you can use it technically as there is no harm in it but if you compare GA with AWStats there is no way you can compare!
-
You can. It's just that Free Tools like GA, provide you a lot more data and reporting that AWStats can't. Still, there's no reason for you not to use AWStats if that serves your needs and that's all your care about in terms of basic daily/monthly reporting.
-
But why we shouldn't use it for measuring marketing efforts?
-
Awstats, back in those days worked wonders. One advantage it has is that it's Server Side, which is crunching Raw Log Files. Other then that, GA and similar Analytics are much more advanced today and provide an insane amount of data and reporting. You can do Week over Week, Month Over Month, Year Over Year kinds of analysis, and other custom reporting, which you can't do with AWstats and alike.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How does Google measure page position in Webmasters?
Does anyone know exactly how Google measures page position in Webmaster Tools? For example: In Google Webmaster Tools, we had a product which on the 22/12/15 was at position 7, and then dropped to position 112 on the 30/12/15. It then rose back up to position 7 on the 6/01/16 and then down to position 25 on the 16/01/16. What does this mean and why?
Reporting & Analytics | | CostumeD0 -
Measuring Views of Product Details
Hello Experts, What does Measuring Views of Product Details means? Here is the code for this - https://developers.google.com/tag-manager/enhanced-ecommerce#details Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | bkmitesh1 -
Best way to measure local search keyword rank
I have several clients that have a regional or local presence and want to track their rankings for various keywords, but only in the areas they are located in. What are the best ways to track keyword rank in specific locations or regions of the US?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheURLdr0 -
Homepage disappeared from Google's index
The Title says it all..I just discovered that the Homepage is not in Google's index anymore. Homepage rankings have plummeted, our top keywords are nowhere to be found but most of keywords from deeper pages have dropped just one or two places. We just change the website design and some content but I strongly believe this is definitely something else due to the fact that it all happened so fast! There is one thing that I have to mention that might have been caused all this..our email client (Outlook) is using a lot of resources from our server and for the last couple of days the website was down quite a lot.
Reporting & Analytics | | echo1
There are some crawling errors in GWT but the homepage has been crawled because is not there, no other messages. Where should I look for?0 -
Why isn't Google showing the first keyword result in Analytics anymore?
Just checked my Google Analytics traffic sources under organic search and it dosen't display the first keyword, it says "not provided" is there another way of determining the #1 organic searched keyword that my site was found under?
Reporting & Analytics | | Randog0 -
Should I delete a page that gets search traffic, that I don't care about?
I have a page on my site that consistently gets traffic, every month. Googlers seems to love it. But I don't like it at all. Webmaster tools shows that google allows us a certain number of search impressions each day. - it flatlines, they are limiting the impressions we get. We also getthe same number of clickthroughs each day. So my question is for anyone who has this same experience, who may have experimented by deleting a page you don't care about. Did you just lose that number of clicks each day or did other pages on your site get displayed and clicked through instead?
Reporting & Analytics | | loopyal0 -
Tracking 301'd Domains
'ello SEOMozers 🙂 I've been implementing some awesomely search engine friendly 301'd domains for clients and they work great but I seem to have missed the point where I track said domains in some fashion and come here to ask the question --> how are you all tracking refers from 301'd domains that are pointed to your main hubs? Currently our practice in-house is to alias them in our servers then use .htaccess rules to 301 them to the 1 domain to-rule-them-all but Google Analytics doesn't recognize them as different domains with that plan of action and there goes my refer tracking. Is there a super-star way to use the Google URL Builder and combine that with the above plan of action or a better plan? Has anyone else implemented something else more awesome-er that could help a girl out? Much thanks and Happy Thursday!
Reporting & Analytics | | treefrogseo0 -
Why are we not seeing similar traffic patterns in a new market?
Good afternoon! We have a large real estate site with over 400,000 urls. We do pretty well with long-tailed search terms (like addresses--- 123 Main Street, Atlanta GA) so we get a decent amount of traffic (3,500-4,000 uniques a day). 2 months ago we opened up in a new market (Nashville) and hoped to see similar traffic for that market after a few of months, but so far we haven't. In fact, we only get about 200 visits a day. I can't seem to figure out why it's taking so long for us to generate similar traffic in Nashville that we see in Atlanta. All of the Nashville properties are in our sitemap and are being indexed by Google. Any ideas why we aren't seeing similar effects?Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! David
Reporting & Analytics | | clickscape0