Why are my stats different from other analytics?
If you compare Fathom to another analytics platform, the stats will undoubtedly vary. This isn't due to a problem with either platform; it's more to do with the following:
- How many visitors are being counted by the analytics software? Ad-blockers block some analytics, as do some browsers.
- How is each analytics platform counting unique visitors? For example, Fathom resets uniques each day as a matter of privacy.
- How does each analytics platform determine time-on-page? Fathom, right now, determines this by looking at the duration between page views.
- Ensure the analytics software you are comparing is present on ALL the same pages and that you are comparing a date range where both analytics software was present.
- Each analytics platform deals with bots and crawlers differently, and Fathom filters out close to “all” of them to keep our data quite accurate. There’s nothing to set up or do in Fathom to take advantage of this. On the other hand, Google Analytics doesn’t filter out any bots or crawlers and results in a whole lot of dashboard spam unless you spend a lot of time setting up filters.
Can I use Fathom and Google Analytics together?
By all means, use Fathom alongside your existing Google Analytics installation (or other analytics software). Just be aware that the data collected will differ.
With that said, we recommend you stop sending your visitors' data to Google as soon as possible as the use of Google Analytics has been ruled illegal.