BRexx
April 27, 2015, 2:17pm
1
Hallo everyone,
I am curious whether anyone else has attempted to use Piwik and Google-Analytics simultaneously to cross-check stats, as I am about to. Currently I use the tracking parameter e.g. www.test-url.com?cp=test-kamp to track the success of campaigns, including adwords. The question is, whether Google-Analytics will also be able to read these parameters or not. Does anyone have experience with this? Google Support, as usual, are pretty useless in this matter...
Any tips or experiences from other Piwik users would be much appreciated!
Cheers Barrie
Yes, I have done a simple comparison of numbers but not a trickier thing you want to do. My report is here: Piwik vs Google Analytics mismatch comparison
Hi byoussin,
your comparison sounds very interesting. Did you also compare download figures?
This is where I found the biggest difference in Piwik (I also compared the downloads in Piwik vs. AWStats as in your analysis on your website).
A little bit off-topic:
As I understood from your comparison, you relied on your server logs as being the most reliable source. Is there a reason for that? Because server logs can also be inaccurate, e.g.if your site is cached by providers, CDNs etc. Requests that are directed directly to the cached site won’t show up in your server logs.
If you use the JS tracking method for Piwik/Google Analytics caching is not the problem. But there are other sources of inaccuracy (visitors navigating away before the site is completely loaded etc.).
In your comparison, could you find for all page views in Piwik corresponding page views in your log (identified by a unique IP)?
Hi hulotte,
Thank you for this good point. However, I do not think this matters for my comparison since (1) I am not using CDN and (2) effects of provider caching should not show up at my level of traffic which is a few visits a day.
In my post I have argued that it is reasonable not to count such visitors as they found my pages irrelevant, and this is in agreement with the JS tracking method of Google Analytics and Piwik.
As I wrote in my post, I have been able to make correspondence between pages viewed according to Piwik Visitor Log, and pages viewed according to server log together with secondary files that included piwik tracking js code.
After excluding 7 pageviews which did not get to the Piwik js code, there was one pageview that Piwik misreported, and four pageviews that Piwik missed.
I reported these as bugs with full details:
opened 12:52PM - 27 Apr 15 UTC
closed 05:13PM - 14 Jul 15 UTC
wontfix
The following excerpt from my server log is reported as two visits despite the f… act that the page was viewed only once, on the first line of this log:
213.156.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:44 -0500] "GET /java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html HTTP/1.1" 200 9251 "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2106525/java-incorrect-timezone" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
213.156.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:44 -0500] "GET /wp-content/cache/autoptimize/js/autoptimize_2af39afd414802b92688b956476aa38e.js?b7a424 HTTP/1.1" 200 46999 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
213.156.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:46 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.js HTTP/1.1" 200 15094 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
213.156.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:47 -0500] "GET /wp-content/cache/autoptimize/css/autoptimize_8de2408e83a7c9dd6137e726b3faba75.css HTTP/1.1" 200 17565 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
50.22.11.17 - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:53 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=API.getDefaultMetricTranslations&format=original&serialize=1&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 4085 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
50.22.11.17 - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:56 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=CoreAdminHome.runScheduledTasks&format=csv&convertToUnicode=0&token_auth=bdb038e526e3e7e663498d6cbfb59ff9&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 73 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
213.156.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:47 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.php?action_name=Java%20incorrect%20time%20zone%20bug%20on%20Windows&idsite=1&rec=1&r=726397&h=18&m=39&s=44&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&urlref=http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F2106525%2Fjava-incorrect-timezone&_id=4c0615e0222afccc&_idts=1428075584&_idvc=1&_idn=0&_refts=1428075584&_viewts=1428075584&_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F2106525%2Fjava-incorrect-timezone&send_image=0&pdf=1&qt=0&realp=0&wma=1&dir=0&fla=1&java=1&gears=0&ag=1&cookie=1&res=1680x1050>_ms=2295 HTTP/1.1" 204 - "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
213.156.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:57 -0500] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.118 Safari/537.36"
50.22.11.17 - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:53 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=API.getDefaultMetricTranslations&format=original&serialize=1&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 4085 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Unknown; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.34 (KHTML, like Gecko) PhantomJS/1.10.0 (development) Safari/534.34"
50.22.11.17 - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:57 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=CoreAdminHome.runScheduledTasks&format=csv&convertToUnicode=0&token_auth=bdb038e526e3e7e663498d6cbfb59ff9&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 17 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Unknown; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.34 (KHTML, like Gecko) PhantomJS/1.10.0 (development) Safari/534.34"
111.206.Visitor.IP - - [03/Apr/2015:10:39:48 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.php?action_name=Java%20incorrect%20time%20zone%20bug%20on%20Windows&idsite=1&rec=1&r=726397&h=18&m=39&s=44&url=http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&urlref=http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2106525/java-incorrect-timezone&_id=4c0615e0222afccc&_idts=1428075584&_idvc=1&_idn=0&_refts=1428075584&_viewts=1428075584&_ref=http://stackoverflow.com/questions /2106525/java-incorrect-timezone&send_image=0&pdf=1&qt=0&realp=0&wma=1&dir=0&fla=1&java=1&gears=0&ag=1&cookie=1&res=1680x1050>_ms=2295 HTTP/1.1" 204 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Unknown; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.34 (KHTML, like Gecko) PhantomJS/1.10.0 (development) Safari/534.34"
Here Visitor.IP replaces the trailing part of the actual visitor IP and 50.22.11.17 is my server IP.
Visitor Log reports this as two visits, one from 213.156.Visitor.IP and the other from 111.206.Visitor.IP, both at the same time, in accordance with the number of calls to piwik.php.
According to Visitor Profile, these two visits are from the same visitor which means that the visitor's IP changed at this time. Looking further at the exact times of the http calls we might suggest that the visitor had both IPs all the time and used them interchangingly.
It appears that such situation causes Piwik to incorrectly report pageviews twice.
<a href="http://baruchyoussin.com/piwik-vs-google-analytics-comparison-reliable.html">I have compared Piwik with Google Analytics and reported the results here</a>; this bug accounts for the page misreported by Piwik in this report.
Unfortunately, I have already removed Piwik from my site due to performance issues.
I have the original html code of the page <a href="http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html">Java incorrect time zone bug on Windows</a> that was viewed by that visitor but cannot include it since html code cannot be properly attached to this message. The Piwik code was included in an additional js file, autoptimize_2af39afd414802b92688b956476aa38e.js, and I have both files available if necessary.
opened 03:19PM - 27 Apr 15 UTC
closed 11:38PM - 29 Apr 15 UTC
answered
I have seen the following sequence of actions not reported in Visitor Log, this … happening twice with two different visitors.
In both cases user first opens <a href="http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html">Java incorrect time zone bug on Windows</a>, then <a href="http://baruchyoussin.com/java-native-interface-jni-programmer-guide-tutorial-javah.html">Step by step Java Native Interface (JNI) guide and tutorial</a> but this is not reported by Piwik apparently because user closes this page immediately, and then opens <a href="http://baruchyoussin.com/time-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html">Time zones in Java: design discussion</a>.
The first and the third of the viewed pages are reported by Piwik script as seen on the server log but in both cases the visit is not listed in the Visitor Log at all.
The first visit is logged as follows:
```
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:05:49 -0500] "GET /java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html HTTP/1.1" 200 9251 "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2106525/java-incorrect-timezone" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:05:49 -0500] "GET /wp-content/cache/autoptimize/js/autoptimize_2af39afd414802b92688b956476aa38e.js?b7a424 HTTP/1.1" 200 46999 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:05:50 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.js HTTP/1.1" 200 15094 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:05:50 -0500] "GET /wp-content/cache/autoptimize/css/autoptimize_8de2408e83a7c9dd6137e726b3faba75.css HTTP/1.1" 200 17565 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
50.22.11.17 - - [01/Apr/2015:08:05:57 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=API.getDefaultMetricTranslations&format=original&serialize=1&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 4085 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
50.22.11.17 - - [01/Apr/2015:08:06:01 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=CoreAdminHome.runScheduledTasks&format=csv&convertToUnicode=0&token_auth=bdb038e526e3e7e663498d6cbfb59ff9&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 73 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:05:51 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.php?action_name=Java%20incorrect%20time%20zone%20bug%20on%20Windows&idsite=1&rec=1&r=850876&h=17&m=5&s=51&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&urlref=http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F2106525%2Fjava-incorrect-timezone&_id=248d9efc2d0e8449&_idts=1427893551&_idvc=1&_idn=0&_refts=1427893551&_viewts=1427893551&_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F2106525%2Fjava-incorrect-timezone&send_image=0&pdf=0&qt=0&realp=0&wma=0&dir=0&fla=1&java=1&gears=0&ag=1&cookie=1&res=1280x1024>_ms=500 HTTP/1.1" 204 - "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:06:02 -0500] "GET /java-native-interface-jni-programmer-guide-tutorial-javah.html HTTP/1.1" 200 8545 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:06:02 -0500] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:06:20 -0500] "GET /time-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html HTTP/1.1" 200 7131 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
87.249.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:08:06:20 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.php?action_name=Time%20zone%20design%20in%20Java%20%7C%20Olson%20time%20zone%20database%20in%20Java&idsite=1&rec=1&r=128961&h=17&m=6&s=20&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Ftime-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html&urlref=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&_id=248d9efc2d0e8449&_idts=1427893551&_idvc=1&_idn=0&_refts=1427893551&_viewts=1427893551&_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F2106525%2Fjava-incorrect-timezone&send_image=0&pdf=0&qt=0&realp=0&wma=0&dir=0&fla=1&java=1&gears=0&ag=1&cookie=1&res=1280x1024>_ms=484 HTTP/1.1" 204 - "http://baruchyoussin.com/time-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0"
Here Visitor.IP stands for the trailing part of the actual visitor's IP and 50.22.11.17 is the IP of my server.
The second visit is logged as follows:
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:38:59 -0500] "GET /java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html HTTP/1.1" 200 9251 "http://www.google.pl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFwQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&ei=aAEcVYbbLeyP7Ab3hYCoBg&usg=AFQjCNE5Vhj-qGMY_9FrcQjLEUAw38ge5w&bvm=bv.89744112,d.ZGU" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:38:59 -0500] "GET /wp-content/cache/autoptimize/js/autoptimize_2af39afd414802b92688b956476aa38e.js?b7a424 HTTP/1.1" 200 46999 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:00 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.js HTTP/1.1" 200 15094 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:00 -0500] "GET /wp-content/cache/autoptimize/css/autoptimize_8de2408e83a7c9dd6137e726b3faba75.css HTTP/1.1" 200 17565 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
50.22.11.17 - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:01 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=API.getDefaultMetricTranslations&format=original&serialize=1&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 4085 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
50.22.11.17 - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:03 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/index.php?module=API&method=CoreAdminHome.runScheduledTasks&format=csv&convertToUnicode=0&token_auth=bdb038e526e3e7e663498d6cbfb59ff9&trigger=archivephp HTTP/1.1" 200 73 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:00 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.php?action_name=Java%20incorrect%20time%20zone%20bug%20on%20Windows&idsite=1&rec=1&r=833922&h=16&m=39&s=0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&urlref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.pl%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D10%26cad%3Drja%26uact%3D8%26ved%3D0CFwQFjAJ%26url%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html%26ei%3DaAEcVYbbLeyP7Ab3hYCoBg%26usg%3DAFQjCNE5Vhj-qGMY_9FrcQjLEUAw38ge5w%26bvm%3Dbv.89744112%2Cd.ZGU&_id=042fdff7fec856fa&_idts=1427899140&_idvc=1&_idn=0&_refts=1427899140&_viewts=1427899140&_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.pl%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D10%26cad%3Drja%26uact%3D8%26ved%3D0CFwQFjAJ%26url%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html%26ei%3DaAEcVYbbLeyP7Ab3hYCoBg%26usg%3DAFQjCNE5Vhj-qGMY_9FrcQjLEUAw38ge5w%26bvm%3Dbv.89 744112%2Cd.ZGU&send_image=0&pdf=0&qt=1&realp=0&wma=1&dir=0&fla=1&java=1&gears=0&ag=0&cookie=1&res=1920x1080>_ms=220 HTTP/1.1" 204 - "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:03 -0500] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:03 -0500] "GET /java-native-interface-jni-programmer-guide-tutorial-javah.html HTTP/1.1" 200 8545 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:04 -0500] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:18 -0500] "GET /time-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html HTTP/1.1" 200 7131 "http://baruchyoussin.com/java-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
31.61.Visitor.IP - - [01/Apr/2015:09:39:18 -0500] "GET /piwik-analytics/piwik.php?action_name=Time%20zone%20design%20in%20Java%20%7C%20Olson%20time%20zone%20database%20in%20Java&idsite=1&rec=1&r=552871&h=16&m=39&s=18&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Ftime-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html&urlref=http%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html&_id=042fdff7fec856fa&_idts=1427899140&_idvc=1&_idn=0&_refts=1427899140&_viewts=1427899140&_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.pl%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D10%26cad%3Drja%26uact%3D8%26ved%3D0CFwQFjAJ%26url%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbaruchyoussin.com%2Fjava-incorrect-time-zone-bug-windows.html%26ei%3DaAEcVYbbLeyP7Ab3hYCoBg%26usg%3DAFQjCNE5Vhj-qGMY_9FrcQjLEUAw38ge5w%26bvm%3Dbv.89744112%2Cd.ZGU&send_image=0&pdf=0&qt=1&realp=0&wma=1&dir=0&fla=1&java=1&gears=0&ag=0&cookie=1&res=1600x900>_ms=204 HTTP/1.1" 204 - "http://baruchyoussin.com/time-zone-design-in-java-olson-time-zone-database.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"
```
Both visits were not listed in Piwik Visitor Log at all.
<a href="http://baruchyoussin.com/piwik-vs-google-analytics-comparison-reliable.html">I have compared Piwik with Google Analytics and reported the results here</a>; this bug accounts for the four page missed by Piwik according to this report.
Most of the problems arises with the sections like page views, bounce rate, counts, visitors visits etc. If you use JS tracking method for piwik & GA. Instead of that, Why dont you try Gostats. It might be helpful for you.
matthieu
(Matthieu Aubry)
September 17, 2015, 5:57am
6
Whims
September 23, 2015, 3:18pm
7
Universal analytics.js can recognize different campaign tracking parameters other than the default
utm_source, utm_campaign, utm_medium, utm_term etc etc
via a plugin (campaign-loader.js)
Google Analytics Dev Docs - Campaign Loader Example
If using Adwords, Google Analytics also allows for configuration in the Property Settings page for -
Allow manual tagging (UTM values) to override auto-tagging (GCLID values)
(Select this option to allow your manual URL tagging to override AdWords auto-tagging.)
I have GA code on some of my sites.
But it dont use it.
I added that GA code a few years ago when my paid shared hosting service replied to me “Why arent you using Google Analitics like everyone else ?” after i ask him in a support ticket why was it so hard to use Piwik (all widgets loading indefinately) after that my hosting service was merged into this one.
For a long time, i was really sad that i couldn’t use Piwik any more.
Because, i really dont like Google Analytics, it doesn’t show me what i want to see, at least in the free version of the service.
I need the visitor log.
I’m fine with getting to others stats, but visitor log is more important to me than anyting.
I even dreamed of programing my own little stats software that would only have the visitor log and be more lightweight on the server.
But instead, i used an old computer, made a server out of it and installed Piwik on it.
Mostly work like a charm.
It’s connection might be unstable, getting 90% of the stats and been able to consult them is better than what i had.
Beside, as the years pass, Google is doing more and more bad stuff for alternate analytic solutions.
Knowing what the visitors typed in search engine to visit my sites was my second reason to use Piwik, and since 96% of my visits are now from “Undefined keyword”, i really feel sad.
Sure, all i have to do is go to my “Google Sitemap” account and all the data is there, but it’s a pain !
As a Gmail (in Thunderbird) and Android user, i can’t totally get rid Google, but sometimes i wish i could.
If only they would stop asking for a cell phone number, i dont even have one !
Sorry to deviate from the main purpose of the discussion here.