Why are my website visits lower than in Google Analytics?
NinjaHQ counts visits without cookies, and skips robots, signed-in staff and browsers that ask not to be tracked, so totals can run a bit lower.
Your website counts its own visits. That keeps your visitors' privacy safe and means you never need a cookie banner for statistics, but it also means the totals can differ from a cookie-based tool such as Google Analytics.
Before you begin
- You do not need to change anything. This article explains what the numbers on Website traffic mean.
Steps
- Open Analytics > Website traffic and scroll to the bottom of the page.
- Open How this is counted. It is the same explanation summarized here.
- Compare what is counted and what is not:
- Counted: real people opening your public website pages, their time with the page open and in view, and actions such as clicking to book, tapping the phone number, getting directions, sending a form or signing a waiver.
- Not counted: your own staff while signed in to the back office on that device, search engines and other robots, visitors whose browser asks not to be tracked (Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control), visitors who opted out on your privacy page, and any networks you add on the Website traffic page. See How do I stop my own visits from being counted?.
- Remember what is not available. Without cookies or advertising profiles, the report cannot show new versus returning visitors or age, gender and interests. A visitor who comes back the next day counts again.
What you'll see
The site gives each visitor an anonymous code that changes every day, and the daily salt behind it is deleted after two days. Visits are kept for 14 months. Because of all this, treat the numbers as a reliable trend rather than an exact head count. Compare one period with another in the same tool, not across different tools.
Troubleshooting
My total is much lower than before. Check whether you added your gym's network to the list that is not counted, and whether many of the earlier visits were robots, which are no longer counted.
I visited my own site and it did not show. If you are signed in to the back office on that device, your visit is not counted. Use a phone that is not signed in.
Questions
Do I need a cookie banner?
No. The site counts visits itself and stores nothing on the visitor's device, so no cookie banner is needed for visit counting.
Are visitors' IP addresses stored?
No. No IP address is kept with the visits.
Can I see which words people typed into Google?
Not here. Search words come from Google Search Console, which you can connect on Analytics > Search vs competitors.