well. say you have a search console, a JavaScript analytics tool and raw server logs, and they all disagree about traffic.. :/ not slightly: meaningfully.
the gap is big enough that a client asking about it would expect an explanation, and "tools disagree" isnt gonna cut it. id like to understand where the differences come from and which number to use for what. pls help 🙏
hmmm consent and blockers are a big factor :) If the site has a cookie consent banner and analytics only loads after consent, everyone who declines or ignores teh banner is invisible to analytics. Content blockers also stop alot of analytics scripts. Depending on the audience that can be a substantial share.
@binarysmith-ur explained teh three sources to the client and switched teh report to show trends per source instead of one combined number. They were happy with that.
sorry forgot to say yes, analytics only loads after consent. id guess a fair number of visitors just ignore the banner, search conosle and logs arent affected by that.
Id suggest not dismissing server logs as "just bots" 🔥 With decent bot filtering, logs are the one source that isnt affected by consent or blockers. For a technical audience, log-based or server-side analytics can give a much more realistic picture of human visits. just my 2 cents
lol same thing happened to me they measrue different things. search console counts clikcs on search results. analytics counts sessions that loaded and ran its script. server logs count requests, including bots. A click that bounces before the script loads, or a visitor with a blocekr, shows up in search console but not analytics. so none is "wrong". fingers crossed 🤞
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