In MyBlogLog and AdSense, Dom recounts a discrepancy between his AdSense click data as reported by Google and MyBlogLog.
It’s a simple question, but one I’ve been struggling with ever since one of my sites received a large spike in traffic. MyBlogLog’s stats and AdSense’s stats showed roughly the same number of impressions (give or take what you’d expect for people who block ads), but the stats for click-outs were totally different - by a factor of 10!
I've also seen this myself, but most days the numbers are pretty close to each other. They're unlikely to ever be exactly the same, for a variety of reasons:
- Google does click fraud detection and removal. MyBlogLog doesn't.
- MyBlogLog click tracking will timeout quickly (dropping the click) if there's a network problem that slows it down.
- AdSense stats are usually based on a 24 hour day in the Pacific timezone, while MyBlogLog uses Eastern Time.
- And so on...
Having said all that, do you compare your stats between the two? If so, are they in the same ballpark most of the time? What's the biggest discrepancy you've seen so far?
Posted by jzawodn at March 20, 2007 08:02 AM
The Tracking-Code for non IE ist not perfect, as it could result in false-positives: clicks can be generated, even if no ad was clicked. Just reload the page, while you are over the AdSense box.
Another thing is, that the Tracking-Code does not work on Firefox, when you move the mouse too fast to the AdSense box. Because then, the calculated "margin" of about 10 px around the AdSense box is not "hit". You cannot track anything from a foreign IFrame-URL in Firefox. Not even a mouse movement above it.
Dirk: I don't expect numbers to *exactly* match, but I'd expect them to be in the same ballpark area. The difference I'm seeing is a ten-fold one - and it's the MyBlogLog stats that appear to me to be the most accurate.
The biggest difference I've seen is the actual visitors.
yesterday for example...
MyBlogLog shows 48 visits.
Webalizer shows 799 visits.
Is MyBlogLog only counting mybloglog people as visits? Or are that many spam bots visiting my site?
I guess it's time to install google analytics and get a 3rd opinion.
A spambot would only count if it also executed all the Javascript.
Is webalizer smart enough to ignore "visitors" to your RSS feed and whatnot? I've not used it in ages.
That's a good point Jeremy. I didn't think about RSS feeds. I have a feeling that webalizer is counting RSS readers (and I have another feeling that most of my readers use my RSS feed.)
I also get the idea that they count "visits" differently. I'll have to see what analytics says.
At least, according to my feedbutton stats.. I have quite a few subscribers for being such a small time blogger.
The only thing I did notice for sure after installing MyBlogLog is that 3 or 4 specific spammers started trying to post insane amounts of comments on my blog. I don't know if they're related, but these particular spams started shortly after the mybloglog code, and general spam attempts greatly increased.
Just thought I'd share that.
Mine are pretty close. I checked yesterday and had around 35 clicks between multiple blogs and the counts were only off a couple which could be settled by factoring in the different time zones.
Nowhere near 10X difference you are finding.
I don't have a MyBlogLog Pro account so I can't go back and check, but I'm fairly sure the stats were roughly equal before my traffic spike. As it is, my AdSense revenue has fallen to practically nothing now.
I'm now considering invoicing Google for "unreported clicks".
FYI.. I installed the mybloglog stats on another site, and it's tracking my YPN clicks now. I love that!
I found that MyBlogLog actually reported about 20 less clicks than YPN did for yesterday.
I also found it sort of interesting that one yahoo product (mybloglog) is providing stats about another yahoo product (ypn), that the 2nd product inaccurately. How hard would it be to make them integrate seamlessly?
That'd be a killer feature for the pro version.
I actually mentioned this issue in a comment over on Matt Cutts blog a couple of days ago with no response so far.
It was interesting that he was linking though to MBL hacking, but not the FUD regarding the tracking that was spread around the same time.
I have only been using MBL for tracking on low traffic blogs with Adsense, so there hasn't been a huge difference in stats between clicks, if any at all.
Some things I have noticed is a difference in referrer stats and page views on a couple of noticable stumbles, which I found odd.
There is often a slight difference between MBL and Google Analytics on traffic counts, typically MBL picking up slightly more, and doing it in real time.
A quick update on this here:
http://blog.domramsey.com/tech/google-gone-awol/
I've now pretty much ruled out MyBlogLog having anything to do with the discrepency, and I'm sure it's down to Google rejecting clicks for some reason (other click-logging software gives pretty much the same numbers as MyBlogLog).
Unfortunately, Google haven't responded to my mails for two weeks, so I'm stuck for the moment.
Jeremy wrote... "AdSense stats are usually based on a 24 hour day in the Pacific timezone, while MyBlogLog uses Eastern Time".
I recently upgraded to a myblog Pro Account on one of my sites, the pro account allows you to specify a time zone, thus enabling me to synch google and mybloglog reporting periods.
I've yet to check for any difference yet though.
.
A response from Google:
http://blog.domramsey.com/tech/mybloglog-and-adsense-googles-response/
This points to it being more of an issue with MyBlogLog (and click-tracking in general), but I'm still not convinced it's the whole story.
I have Mybloglog tracking on a new site that I opened. The site has three Google ads displayed, and after seeing the discrepancy between the "credit" given by Google in terms of clicks and that reported by Mybloglog, I was quite confused.
According to mybloglog, I received around 250 clicks on Google ads. According to Google, I received slightly less than 20 (on a very high traffic day). I'm not sure of what to make of the results.
I've discussed this on my blog a couple of times now. Getting more and more frustrating.
I am having a similar problem but in my case it is within the last month that the numbers on both ends stopped matching up. MBL says 100 clicks while AdSense says 0 clicks.
Yet, one of my other blogs is always right on or within 5 clicks.
Hey man, I had the identical problem and I figured it out what was happening.
Try this: Check your mybloglog for how many adsense clicks you have, then come back to your site, let your mouse hover over one of your adsense ads, then click backspace, or somehow use your keyboard to navigate away from the page. DONT CLICK THE AD. After you’ve navigated away, check your mybloglog and you’ll have another adsense click.
Mybloglog determines clicks based on where the pointer is as the browser navigates away from the page.
Max, that could possibly explain why there would be *some* discrepancies, but doesn't come anywhere near describing ones with a factor of 10 fold or more.
I saw someone that had a very significant spike in traffic recently. AdSense showed them as having 5 clicks, whereas MBL said 300+. The odds that 300+ people would even use keyboard navigation, let alone do so with the mouse hovering exactly over the ads each time, pretty much rules that out as the cause. Something just isn't right here.
I have found something weird. I will see clicks and dollar amounts in my adsense channels, then next time I login they are gone! What's up with that?
