Mismatch between analytics and webmaster tools
-
Hi,
I've noticed that the Queries report in analytics gives a completely different answer (for impressions, clicks, CTR, Avg. position) to webmaster tools. What gives?
Which would you use?
Thanks,
Amelia
-
Oh absolutely. I never take any data as being 100% accurate. I was just surprised by the huge difference in both places - I thought they would be the same and I wonder why Google doesn't just pull webmaster tools data into analytics (which is what I assumed they were doing)...
Curiouser, and curiouser!
-
I find it odd that Google use two different methods for generating these figures, particularly when you consider how large their data set is and how many customers they serve. It is always worth taking any metric data with a pinch of salt as it can clearly be skewed. I think that many see Google's data as absolute but this discrepancy clearly demonstrates that it isn't.
-
Thanks for answering
-
I would also try StatCounter - it's Free and always provides slightly different data compared to Analytics.
-
Hi there!
There are some differences in how both tools handle the different metrics. I think this article will help you understanding some of the differences.
Hope this helps,
Sander
-
I'd use clicky. I find it superior to GA.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Organic vs SEO in Analytics
In my analytics account, the Acquisition / All Traffic / Google organic searches shows me around 19,000 hits from 1st Jan to 1st Feb. But if I go to the Search Engine Optimization tab / Queries or Landing pages I can only count 1,800 clicks from 1st Jan to 1st Feb. Why such a huge discrepancy ? Am I getting 1800 clicks from the Google organic search, or 19,000 ?
Reporting & Analytics | | coadr930 -
Something does not add up with WMTs search analytics data
we recently replatformed our main site and switched to https. For the first 2-3 weeks after we moved organic traffic was great, we did not lose any ( increased a little), but then it dropped off significantly. Attached is a screenshot from one of our main keywords that dropped off. You can see click (blue) and impressions (red) dropped off, and the position became unstable, but in the last week it has stabilised to about the same position it was before, but the clicking and impressions are still very low. The keyword is generic (for our industry) and there would not be any major seasonal changes in the search volume. I can't make sense of this data, could be be wrong? Kd3p5f9.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | PaddyDisplays1 -
Google Analytics Landing Page Report Discrepancy
I have noticed that when I run a landing page report and use the advanced option so I can view only the landing pages that include a particular string in the URL, have noticed that I in the report, the graph at the top will say one thing, but the data below says something else. For example, the graph for one particular search shows 200 Impressions, but the info below says 700 impressions and 610 clicks. Anyone seen anything similar or have any ideas why? Thanks! Craig
Reporting & Analytics | | TheCraig0 -
Strange Traffic / Viewed content in Analytics
Hi Im looking at the content viewed in December for a clients site and there's a high number of page views for some non-existent pages which received multiple hits eg. domain.com/dr-capability/ with 241 page views (54 unique page views) How can you have multiple page views (and many unique page views) for pages that don't exist ? Is it possible page is being generated automatically or something ? if so how come ? Any ideas as to whats causing this much appreciated ? All Best Dan ps - also many above average home page views
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
How long does Google Analytics store data?
Hello All, How long analytics keep the data for one website? at least two years at least 25 months other I guess that they guarantee at least 25 months, but it might be more.
Reporting & Analytics | | CommercePundit
Anyone has any other suggestion? Thanks,0 -
Analytics goal funnel regular expression not working
Hi Guys can anyone point me in the right direction. My funnels used to work fine until our app team decided to add variables in a directory structure instead of a query string. I need to be able to track page steps that now look like this Step 1 = /Reservation/Search/Var1/Var2
Reporting & Analytics | | apolloseo
Step 2 = /Reservation/Quote/Var1/Var2 I've set up this but it's not working Step 1 = /Reservation/Search.*
Step 2 = /Reservation/Quote.* What am I doing wrong?0 -
Why are Seemingly Randomly Generated URLs Appearing as Errors in Google Webmaster Tools?
I've been confused by some URLs that are showing up as errors in our GWT account. They seem to just be randomly generated alphanumeric strings that Google is reporting as 404 errors. The pages do 404 because nothing ever existed there or was linked to. Here are some examples that are just off of our root domain: /JEzjLs2wBR0D6wILPy0RCkM/WFRnUK9JrDyRoVCnR8= /MevaBpcKoXnbHJpoTI5P42QPmQpjEPBlYffwY8Mc5I= /YAKM15iU846X/ymikGEPsdq 26PUoIYSwfb8 FBh34= I haven't been able to track down these character strings in any internet index or anywhere in our source code so I have no idea why Google is reporting them. We've been pretty vigilant lately about duplicate content and thin content issues and my concern is that there are an unspecified number of urls like this that Google thinks exist but don't really. Has anyone else seen GWT reporting errors like this for their site? Does anyone have any clue why Google would report them as errors?
Reporting & Analytics | | kimwetter0