Jetpack Statistics vs Awestats vs Webalizer

Differences are indeed to be expected, as each service uses different methods to record, and then calculate traffic on your site. Jetpack, for example, doesn’t include the following in its stats:

• Visits to uploaded documents and files
• Visits from browsers that do not execute javascript or load images
• GoogleBot and other search engine spiders/robots, like Photon
• Visits by users that are logged in

You can change that last setting by going to Jetpack > Stats > Configure in your dashboard.

If Awestats or Webalizer report visits from Photon in your stats, that means they also include visits from bots in stats. That’s to be expected, as both of these tools parse your site’s logs, and these logs include every action on your site, from everyone. In that case, a higher number of visits is to be expected, as a large variety of bots (from search engines, social networks, services, …) will crawl your site if it’s public.

Google Analytics would most likely be closed to Jetpack Stats, as it also excludes visits from bots.

Thanks, Jeremy.

I don’t count admin stats. Be a bit egotistical to be my own favourite reader ??

You are correct about bots but the difference is so vast that i’m still questioning. Plus Awestats and Webalizer, both counting bots, still get radically different stats to each other.

You are correct about bots but the difference is so vast that i’m still questioning.

There are so many bots browsing a public site nowadays, that the results don’t surprise me much. Do Awestats and Webalizer offer you an option to filter visits by User Agent? It could give you a better idea of the different bots currently crawling your site.

Plus Awestats and Webalizer, both counting bots, still get radically different stats to each other.

I don’t use these 2 services so I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you there. I’d recommend contacting them separately, they might have some insight on this.

Yes, it does… but i can’t figure out how to separate bots from real people e.g.

1 	36399 	6.50% 	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +https://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)
2 	23439 	4.19% 	Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/13C75 [FBAN/FBIOS;FBAV/
3 	19473 	3.48% 	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html)
4 	19104 	3.41% 	Photon/1.0
5 	17248 	3.08% 	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MJ12bot/v1.4.5; https://www.majestic12.co.uk/bot.php?+)
6 	17120 	3.06% 	WordPress/4.4.1; https://www.knysnakeep.org
7 	14576 	2.60% 	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MegaIndex.ru/2.0; +https://megaindex.com/crawler)
8 	13650 	2.44% 	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/47.0.2526.106 Safari/537.36
9 	10627 	1.90% 	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:44.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/44.0
10 	8770 	1.57% 	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DotBot/1.1; https://www.opensiteexplorer.org/dotbot, [email redacted])
11 	8711 	1.56% 	WordPress/4.4; https://www.knysnakeep.org
12 	8275 	1.48% 	Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.0 Mobile/13C75 Safar
13 	7693 	1.37% 	Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 9_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/13C75 [FBAN/FBIOS;FBAV/46.0.0.54
14 	7590 	1.36% 	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko
15 	7502 	1.34% 	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsBot/5.0; +https://ahrefs.com/robot/)

Yes, i can see the user agents. Bing’s bot is strangely getting the most hits, double Google’s. And, separately, wp-cron.php is a sucker for hits. 129.232.133.50 visits the most pages but i can’t figure what that is.

What i can’t see is simple human users, something that i could compare to Jetpack’s stats.

129.232.133.50 visits the most pages but i can’t figure what that is.

I’m not sure either. It’s registered as “The African & Indian Ocean Internet Registry” (AFRINIC), in Mauritius. I’m not sure what this is referring to. You could contact them to find out more:
https://www.afrinic.net/

What i can’t see is simple human users, something that i could compare to Jetpack’s stats.

In your list above, numbers 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 14 are most likely human visitors. As you can see, bots usually use their own User Agent (see number 4), or a modified User Agent (see number 1).

They claim to be the internet registry for SA.

If i added the ones you consider likely to be humans, my stats would be higher than Jetpack is showing.

Oh, well, it’ll have to be a mystery for now. Have legal things to prepare for several weeks.

Thanks for your time, Jeremy.

If i added the ones you consider likely to be humans, my stats would be higher than Jetpack is showing.

Among those I mentioned, there could be bots that don’t change the User Agent, visits from browsers that do not execute javascript or load images, or visits to uploaded documents and files. Unfortunately, I can’t know from looking at the logs you posted above.

As you can see, calculating stats is a lot more complicated than just counting visits from logs. ?? That’s why I’d recommend using stats services like Google Analytics, Jetpack Stats, or Piwik. These services will always be more reliable than log file tools like Awestats or Webalizer for user stats.

You can read more about this here:
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/5192/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-web-server-log-analysis-over-web-based-analytics-lik
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/15862/what-are-some-advantages-of-using-analytics-like-urchin

Interesting. I promise to add Google Analytics and compare.

@wickedmike, you mention above…

…i can’t figure out how to separate bots from real people e.g.

This can be very tricky.

Since UAs (User Agent strings) can be forged + are forged, you can’t really look at these for true Bot/non-Bot info.

Also, since Google uses various non-Bot UAs to ensure your site’s compliant with their guidelines (primarily same content returned for all devices) this becomes more complex.

Couple this with VPN + NAT IPs (where 100s-10,000s+) real devices live behind one IP…

Well, you see the challenge.

Step #1 – be clear as to what exactly you’re trying to determine from bot + non-bot stats.

Step #2 – likely best to use GTM, with various events ascribed to funnel step actions. This way you can trace a cookied session through it’s lifetime.

Taking this approach avoids dealing with specific IPs (which no longer works, due to prevalence of VPN/NAT IPs).

This also shift focus away from the Bot + non-Bot question to which sessions are generating the most cash + how best to improve the related funnel steps.