Google Analytics is the gold standard of traffic monitoring software. When site owners talk about their monthly page views or uniques, they are almost always referring to their numbers form Google Analytics. This tracking software is the most accurate and therefore should be installed on your blog if you ever need access to your traffic statistics (don’t EVER use numbers from Blogger!)However.. this accuracy is only true if you have Google Analytics installed CORRECTLY on your site. This means the tracking script should be installed only one time, and in the correct location on the page. If you have duplicate versions of the tracking code or have it installed too early in your head section, you can get falsely inflated analytics.
To demonstrate just how dramatic this inflation can be, I did an experiment on my own site. I installed a second tracking code into my html and then watched my traffic over the next 4 days. This is what happened:
My page views doubled and my bounce rate dropped to about 10%.
As much as I wish those numbers were true.. They are completely an artifact of the duplicated code.
