Wider Website Traffic Reports

axcell

Hi, Anyone have any recommendations on Reporting website traffic? I'm familiar with Google Analytics but I wouldn't mind getting a wider metrics system for analysing traffic... plus GA report seems only to go back 2 months although it's installed much longer then that.

I was thinking of using Alexa but through some research it seems to have very mixed emotions about it credibility, 1 being traffic is reported only from sites with the alexa tool bar add on.

It would be good to see website traffic / progress for the past 6 months. (not totally google based).

Do people use traffic tools other than GA?

PaulPinnacle

axcell wrote: »

...but I wouldn't mind getting a wider metrics system for analysing traffic...

What do you mean by 'wider'? GA covers a fairly extensive range of metrics as standard (once you've configured it correctly and spent a little time tweaking it for ecommerce/goals/funnels/site search/etc), that is comparable to any other tools available.

axcell wrote: »

... plus GA report seems only to go back 2 months although it's installed much longer then that.

Either there has been an account change there (which obviously will lose the old data) or you're looking at a specific date range (e.g. it may be configured to show you this month and the previous month by default, but changing the calendar settings might solve this). If there was an account change for any reason (which would appear the most likely reason given the limited information), sadly you won't be able to retrieve the historical data.

axcell wrote: »

I was thinking of using Alexa but through some research it seems to have very mixed emotions about it credibility, 1 being traffic is reported only from sites with the alexa tool bar add on.

I'm not sure if it's "mixed" to be honest, it's pretty much unanimous that the figures are horridly inaccurate. If you have site data that does go back further than 2 months, try running a quick comparison with the Alexa data available for the site. It's not uncommon to see figures over 600% out of touch with the real data.

(Aside: It's not the 'site' with the toolbar, it's based on a snapshot of users using the Alexa toolbar. If you've got a non technical target audience [or a technical one that know enough to dislike Alexa figures] you won't have many users with the toolbar on your site and end up with the horridly inaccurate numbers mentioned)

axcell wrote: »

It would be good to see website traffic / progress for the past 6 months. (not totally google based).

If you want any type of accurate data, the whole point of analytics data is that you can make informed decisions so using a 'guesstimate' that can be wildly inaccurate can do more harm than good, you've only really got two options.

Client side analytics (like Google Analytics, StatCounter, etc.) or server side analytics (like awstats, webalizer, etc.). Whichever form you choose there will be some flaws in the data. Client side monitoring will tend to underestimate the true traffic to the site due to options available to users to cut it off (e.g. disabling javascript, blocking images, blocking cookies). While server side tools will tend to overestimate traffic (with visits from robots, be they search engine bots or more malicious, showing in the log files).

axcell wrote: »

Do people use traffic tools other than GA?

Your best bet is to use a combination of both server side and client side monitoring, with GA my personal preference of the client side tools available.

market myself online

I would only add to that to teach yourself more about google analytics using the conversion university

http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=indexSplash&rd=1

otherwise look into hiring a professional.

Lindsay

TeachMealog

I like google analytics but i think it is good to have other views
I advocate using some other metrics such as Webalizer / Awstats to look at your traffic
And since they look at log files they are very accurate on your traffic
most hosting packages have these with them and you just have to switch them on

A good substitute for google analytics is www.piwik.org

mneylon

The default view in GA might be only 1 month or 2, but I can access data going back several years ..

Comscore and Alexa can give you *some* data, but they aren't particularly accurate

market myself online

TeachMealog wrote: »

I like google analytics but i think it is good to have other views
I advocate using some other metrics such as Webalizer / Awstats to look at your traffic
And since they look at log files they are very accurate on your traffic
most hosting packages have these with them and you just have to switch them on

they may be accurate, but they can be misleading, as they track robots etc. And the massive difference in statistics can be confusing for business owners. Particularly if people begin trying to compare incomparable statistical pools kinda like comparing apples and oranges.

cormee

TeachMealog wrote: »

I like google analytics but i think it is good to have other views
I advocate using some other metrics such as Webalizer / Awstats to look at your traffic
And since they look at log files they are very accurate on your traffic
most hosting packages have these with them and you just have to switch them on

A good substitute for google analytics is www.piwik.org

Given the disparity in results between the different analytics packages, using more than one can just lead to confusion and cherry-picking of results. In my opinion the best thing to do is to pick one and stick with it, GA seems to be the industry standard for SME so it would be your safest bet.

@OP Avoid, avoid, avoid Alexa.:D