Analytics Data Doesn't Match

[jamiemccardle]

Does anyone know why these numbers in Analytics are always different?  The numbers at the top are always lower.

[PhilD · Accepted solution]

Hi jamiemccardle,

This is not an uncommon question.

Here is why Visits and Unique Visitors in the top banner of the CA page are less than what is displayed elsewhere (drill down to the forum metrics) or exported to CSV.

• The numbers for Visits and Unique Visitors count displayed in the top banner are summary metrics.
• As an example, when a person visits the community, his/her visit (session) is counted as a single visit for the data displayed in the top banner of the CA page as a summary metric.
• During this visit, the member may visit three boards, so his/her visit to each board is added to the count for each unique board for reporting in other sections of CA.
• Therefore, the data viewed in other CA sections (drill down to the forum metrics) or exported to CSV will always be higher for these metrics.
  
  

Does that help?

[SudheeshN · Accepted solution]

Hi,

This mismatch is attributable to the approximation algorithm used in Community Analytics to compute Visits and Unique visitors.

Both Visits and Unique Visitors are using the cardinality functionality of Elastic Search.Internally Elastic Search uses HyperLogLog (HLL++) algorithm to get the cardinality count. This is an approximation algorithm, and because of this  you may see -2% to 2% variation in Visits and Unique Visitor metrics.

https://community.khoros.com/t5/Community-Analytics/Community-Analytics-FAQs/ta-p/89098#toc-hId-1295...

Thanks

Sudheesh

[karolinalinda]

We are also struggling with the data in the Community Analytics. For example, we see higher number of replies than it is in reality (27 vs actual 25). 

Also, the numbers of page views of the posts don't match what we see in the forums.

We've opened a support case for the Khoros team to investigate.

In general, I think it should always be super clear what the data means, how it's gathered and what it represents. We're not 100% sure about what we actually see in those dashboards. We were told that the data displayed in Analytics should be comparable with what we see in Google Analytics, but it doesn't match. And the difference is not around a couple of page views, but basically the difference is about Khoros reporting a number that is 5.5 times lower than what we see in GA. 

[jamiemccardle]

Has anyone else noticed that Community Admin metrics don't match Community Analytics either?

I pulled data for the entire month of February 2021 and it was off by between 20-40% different between the two depending on the data pulled.

[SudheeshN]

Hi @karolinalinda 

That's a bummer. That kind of difference between Community Analytics and Google Analytics should not be there. Will be looking into the support case on priority to try and address it soon.

@jamiemccardle could you please let me know the report which you are comparing between Admin metrics and Community Analytics?

Thanks and regards

Sudheesh

[jamiemccardle]

@SudheeshN 

Thanks! 

Here's our Analytics data for Community registrations in February 2021.

Here's our Community Admin data for Community registrations in February 2021.

Here's the TKBs published in February 2021 according to Community Analytics

Here's the TKBs published in February 2021 according to Community Admin.

[SudheeshN · Accepted solution]

Hi @jamiemccardle 

Since Community Analytics (LSI) is an event based analytical system, even if the articles or nodes are deleted or archived, the metrics associated with those articles/nodes (kudos, posts written, solutions accepted, etc.) remain in tact and continue to be reflected.

Similarly, even if a user gets deleted after completing the registration, the total completed registration count in Community Analytics will still account for that registration. 

However, in Admin Metrics, the metrics are computed based on the 'current' state of the community. 

Also, we are on the path to provide parity of metrics in Community Analytics vis-a-vis Admin Metrics. For those metrics which are already available in Community Analytics, I would strongly recommend referring to those metrics in Community Analytics itself. In case you need more data around the numbers you're seeing in Community Analytics, we can provide the same.

Thanks and regards

Sudheesh

[jamiemccardle]

Thank You!

[SudheeshN]

Hi @karolinalinda 

Update on the issue: We had a bug that led to anonymous visits and page views being not reported in the metrics. The issue has been fixed and the backfill for the impacted time period is in progress. The traffic now looks fine for the dates post March 6th. The backfill for the date range of Feb 28 - March 6th is taking slightly longer as it involves dates more than 1 month in the past.

Please do let me know if you find anything amiss about the numbers.

Also, page views approximates user behaviour and therefore excludes non-human requests (Web crawlers, robots, RSS feeds, REST API calls etc).

Thanks and regards

Sudheesh

[karolinalinda]

Thank you, @SudheeshN for the update!