Google Analytics glitch?
(Updates at the bottom of the post)
I am not a rabid hit-counter. But I have received close to 25K visits (and more than 50K pageviews) in the last 10 months since I moved to my own domain. So when the built-in reports from the WP Google Analytics plugin informed me that no one had come to my blog on the 16th of May, I was certainly taken aback. And now I see that apparently there were just 3 hits on my blog yesterday (the 17th of May). That is certainly not a cause of alarm, for sometimes even I wonder why I get the hits I get usually. But having having said that, like any other self respecting blogger, I do care for incoming links.
Since I moved, I have been getting around 80 hits a day on an average (and 2 to 3 times more when posts got a DP mention). And in the last few days, I know have been linked on itwofs, the tfmpage forums and PutVote, three popular sites on different levels. That why it stuck me as odd yesterday (when I looked at my Google Analytics report), that I had not gotten ANY hits (and ergo no page-views) on my blog at all the day before. That made me really curious to see what caused such a drastic drop.But I then realized that my WP admin page has been showing links from PutVote through yesterday. Now I am starting to think that there was a glitch of some sort. Has anybody else noticed anything like this?
Update: The problem still continues. No more zero hits, but I have seen 56 hits on two (three if I believe my WP Reports plugin) consecutive days. That still bugs me because it is still lower than my average and identical number hits on consecutive days should raise a flag anyways. And in addition, there seem to be discrepancies between the numbers shown on Analytics’s new interface (which perhaps not coincidentally was introduced widely last week) and the older interface that is still available .
But more and more people are noticing similar trends on their sites. The thread that I started in the Troubleshooting section on the Analytics Help Google group on 5/18 is seeing some activity and there are a couple more similar threads open now. I am guessing that as the new interface is rolled out to more and more people, these problems will become more widespread.
What is however disconcerting is the fact that there seems to be no response whatsoever from Google. It’s almost one week now since it happened, so is it too early to expect a response? Are they even aware of this bug? And is it even a bug?
ÜberDesi
Ash http://www.adashofash.com
May 18th, 2007 at 12:47 pmI think Patrix mentioned to me that Google Analytics has a new version out as of yesterday. Maybe u need to update it?
superstarksa http://superstarksa.com
May 18th, 2007 at 12:52 pmAsh: AFAIK, only the reports have been given a makeover. I do not see any message asking me to update code or whatever. But let me re-read everything.
Patrix http://ipatrix.com
May 18th, 2007 at 2:43 pmYup! The new GA is merely a makeover. The code remains the same. I am leaning toward a glitch. Try re-pasting the code [in the header template] and giving it another day. If it doesn’t jump back up then contact GA team.
Karthik http://www.itwofs.com
May 18th, 2007 at 10:58 pmAnantha, Don’t restrict yourself to jusy Ganalytics alone. Use others like Sitecounter and CQcounter at the same time…helps you get a better perspective. CQ has an advantage of showing you as estimate for the day based on the number so far. Sitecounter has a great ‘referral’ tab called ‘Came from’! Try these too.
mlc
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:26 amungalukku yennanga! indha google solradhellam vidunga! neenga yaaru, unga status yenna, unga blog yeppadi pattadhu … neega poyi indha dubaakoor statistics yellaam paakalaama?
hawkeye blog le lollu yellam jujubi baa … wait till u get the “miss” in the pix .. appudu choodu;-)
shanky
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:35 amI am also facing the same issue. The hits on our website have suddenly droped to 0 when the server logs suggest a normal tracking.
Has the problem been resolved for your website ? If yes can you share the details.
-Shanky
superstarksa http://superstarksa.com
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:37 pmShanky: There seem to be more people facing this issue. There are at least two active threads (this and this) on the Analytics Help group:
I started the first thread. Please note that there seems to be some error message that appears when you add your response to the discussion. Ignore that message and just refresh the page and you should see your message added to the bottom of the page.
mlc:
Appadina? Enna solla vara?
Karthik: I should do that!
Patrix: Does it matter that I put the code in the footer like I have done? And more people seem to be having this issue, btw.
mlc
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 pmnamba “ME” yeppadi avar “AP” kittey maatinaaro, andha maadhiri, neengalum oru “miss” kittey maatumbodhu, my true lollu will start nu artham!
Deepa http://lordlabak.blogspot.com
May 29th, 2007 at 4:33 pmIdha ellam oru post a pottu…too much I say.:-)