Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google Analytics: Different stats for date range vs single month?
-
I've been scratching my head, chin, and you name it over this one.
I have an advanced segment to remove bot traffic from my data. When I look at the Audience Overview data for a single month (let's say Aug). I am shown a session count.
No problems here, however If I set the date range to (January - August). The august monthly stats is incorrect, much lower. What this means is that, if I export a CSV report from Jan-Aug, the data is wrong compared to individually recording a month.
Anyone faced this? I've asked the question over at the Google Analytics technical section as well, but no answer
P.S I even used the 'control the number of sessions used to calculate this report' tool but no luck.
-
Google's pre-built filters are working fine for me (i.e. all sessions) and it's my bot filter when I view via a date range vs month only that is causing the confusion.
I got an answer from the google analytics technical page. There is a setting to exclude bot traffic, therefore avoiding the need to build custom segments.
You can do this for each profile so I've turned it on to test, let's see how my results turn out. If it removes the bot traffic automatically, then the date range wouldn't change. Here's how to do it:
Admin >> View Settings >> Bot Filtering (Click the Check Box) then the Save button. Done... no need for a dedicated segment.
-
I agree with Bendall that sampling is what is most likely causing your problem here. You may find this post useful: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1042498?hl=en-GB
I suspect that the reason that your sampled total closely matches the total of individually downloaded monthly data is because sampled data is Google's 'best guess' when the data in the date range becomes too large. This best guess is based on sound statistics, but ultimately there will be some variances. I've found these variances get bigger the larger your site and the larger your date range. Google do this to reduce load on their servers as crunching the numbers for large data sets can be very resource intense. You COULD upgrade to Google Analytics Premium which gives you un-sampled data as standard, but this is very expensive and only really suitably for large organisations.
There is no easy way round this I'm afraid. I'd suggest that you think about what level of data you are comfortably using - sampled data can still give you valuable insights / trends. Some are comfortable with using sampled data (I prefer now too). I believe there are some tools that allow you to download un-sampled data from Google Analytics via their API but I have not tried these.
-
I didn't know about this. I always thought the a data range would show the same data as the small range.
Strange thing is, If I note down each month's sessions individually and then add them up, they closely match the total session count my data range gives. Its just that my month data within the range that is wrong.
-
Are you sure the data in the larger date range is not being "Sampled". Always more dependable to add up smaller date ranges from my experience in the free version of GA, as if their is too much data to crunch it will take a sample and upscale it.
Regards
Ben
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
-
Attribution of conversions to payment gateway in Google Analytics
Hi all, We have been having a problem for a while now where most transactions are attributed to referrals from our payment gateway Sagepay. The issue started a couple of months ago, when we finally upgraded our website to https:// for logged in users and transactions. Before, when we were using http://, transactions were attributed to the correct channel. Even weirder, we upgraded 4 websites and only 2 of them have the issue now, the other two continue to attribute transactions correctly. I added Sagepay to the referral exclusion list which made no difference. Over the weekend, we upgraded to the global site tag and it seems to have improved somewhat, but yesterday 50% of transactions were still attributed to referral/sagepay. I am also seeing an odd issue, where for half of the transactions, the revenue and transaction are attributed to one channel, but the products (quantity) are attributed to another. One of the channels is always referral/sagepay and the other is the channel that the transaction should be attributed to. Has anyone seen this issue before? I'd appreciate any tips that might help us fix this issue. Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | ViviCa10 -
Is there a way to filter all computers on a specific IPv6 network in Google Analytics?
Is there a quick way of filtering the IP addresses for all the computers on a network that's using IPv6? I want to filter out visits to our websites from the devices on our office network, but each computer (and phone and tablet) seems to have a different address. It _looks _like they all start the same way, though. One computer is xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa, another is xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:bbbb:bbbb:bbbb:bbbb, my phone is xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:cccc:cccc:cccc:cccc, etc. Does this mean that xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx is the address for our network as a whole, and I can just set up a Google Analytics filter for "IP addresses starting with..."? Or would doing that also filter out hits from, like, every visitor within a 20 mile radius of our office? If I need to simply put in the individual addresses for each and every device, I will. I'm just hoping it doesn't come to that. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | BrianAlpert780 -
Google Analytics reporting traffic for 404 pages
Hi guys, Unique issue with google analytics reporting for one of our sites. GA is reporting sessions for 404 pages (landing pages, organic traffic) e.g. for this page: http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php the page is currently a 404 page but GA (see screenshot) is reporting organic traffic (to the landing page). Does anyone know any reasons why this is happening? Cheers. http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php GK0zDzj.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | jayoliverwright2 -
Did Analytics change the way to handle Google images searches on Dec 12?
Dear all, One of the sites I'm monitoring receives a lot of traffic from image searches or images that appear in universal search results. On Dec 12th, 2015, the bounce rate for these sessions went from around 30% the day before to around 87%. See screen shot below. Did anybody notice similar bounces in the bounce rate? Did Google change something in the way that image search is handled? Looking forward to your ideas! large?v=mpbl-1&px=999
Reporting & Analytics | | AABMarketing_Frank0 -
Tracking time spent on a section of a website in Google Analytics
Hi, I've been asked by a client to track time spent or number of pages visited on a specific section of their website using Google Analytics but can't see how to do this. For example, they have a "golf" section within their site and want to measure how many people either visit 5 page or more within the golf section or spend at least 6 minutes browsing the various golf section pages. Can anyone advise how if this can be done, and if so, how I go about it. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | geckonm0 -
Google Analytics for example.com and www.example.com
Hello. I have had a Google Analytics account set up to track the property www.example.com for several years. In Google Webmaster Tools, I recently set the preferred domain to example.com (without the www), and we put in a rewrite from www to no-www in the .htaccess file. Should I now change the url of the property in Google Analytics to example.com (without the www), or does Google Analytics see the two urls as the same? Thank you!
Reporting & Analytics | | nyc-seo0 -
Google Analytics - Keywords (not set) or ( not provided) WHY???
In Analytics, most of my visitors are landing on my home page, but when trying to see wich keywords they use, most of them are: (not set) or ( not provided) See screencast: http://screencast.com/t/AKwPW76qLVsN Can you tell why? What is going on? Is there a way to solve this? Thank you, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
Custom Variables to track Vimeo plays on website with Google Analytics?
Hello Everyone, I'm trying to track how many times a Vimeo video is played on my site via GA. Does any of you have any knowledge of how can this be achieved? I've read the documentation and came up with this: After the iframe embed i insert this: Of course the GA is loaded in the header. Does not work, at least i cant see anything in analytics. I have set up the segment as per the attached image. Thanks in advance! Alex E6XnO.png
Reporting & Analytics | | pwpaneuro0