Accuracy of Forum Stats Question

Started by 20abc22, December 31, 2023, 04:32:32 PM

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20abc22

Hi everyone and Happy New Year!

When I look at forum stats at the bottom of main page, I see discrepancies between:

1) number of posts shown in forum stats vs. number of posts shown in admin view of the member list

2) number of views in forum stats vs. number of views shown on the server (cPanel) (of course, Google Analytics page views are even more dramatically different, as they remove bots, etc.).

How accurate are forum stats and can they be relied on in terms of other data (view/responses to specific threads, user hierarchy, etc.)?

Thank you!

Kindred

Can you be more specific as to what you consider discrepancy?

What numbers are you seeing?
Слaва
Украинi

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20abc22

Thanks for your response! I appreciate it, as always!

For example, the total number of posts shown on main page of the forum under stats is 20 903, but when I sum all posts from numbers under Admin list of users, it comes to 20 966.

Views for December show as 1 382 608, but in Cpanel they show 1 932 896 hits (maybe it is not the same as views). I do understand a large portion of it is bots, as Google Analytics gives me about 173K views for December which is probably closer to real numbers.

Arantor

Total views will vary between the front page and the admin stats because the numbers shown on the front page are based on totalling the board index as it is calculated. Trouble is, this never includes all boards if there are sub-sub-boards which are explicitly excluded for the purposes of performance.

Page views are a hot mess; SMF records visits to the server, Google Analytics records visits to Google Analytics - bots naturally don't run the JavaScript, folks like me who run an ad-blocker will also not be included in Google Analytics but will be included in the visits to the server.
Holder of controversial views, all of which my own.


20abc22

Quote from: Arantor on December 31, 2023, 06:23:46 PMTotal views will vary between the front page and the admin stats because the numbers shown on the front page are based on totalling the board index as it is calculated. Trouble is, this never includes all boards if there are sub-sub-boards which are explicitly excluded for the purposes of performance.

Page views are a hot mess; SMF records visits to the server, Google Analytics records visits to Google Analytics - bots naturally don't run the JavaScript, folks like me who run an ad-blocker will also not be included in Google Analytics but will be included in the visits to the server.

Thanks for your reply! What about number of posts?

Arantor

Sorry, the first line should have been 'total posts' not 'total views'.
Holder of controversial views, all of which my own.


Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Also, I think if you simply add up all posts from all user profiles, you will miss all posts by guests or deleted users. But these are included in the board stats, since they are still there, just not attributed to a user.
Slava
Ukraini!
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20abc22

Quote from: Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen on January 01, 2024, 03:43:23 AMAlso, I think if you simply add up all posts from all user profiles, you will miss all posts by guests or deleted users. But these are included in the board stats, since they are still there, just not attributed to a user.

In our case, there are no deleted users or guest posts, as only registered users can post.

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