: Google analytics is counting way to much I have a website using Google analytics but it is counting way to much. To test this i was logging all entry's to my database with time and IP address.

@Kimberly868

The first thing I notice is that your database shows 905 unique visitors, but 4182 visits - if my understanding of visitors/visits is correct it means each unique visitor visited your site approximately 4 times. Unless you run a constantly updating news/sports/weather website this doesn't seem realistic to me.

Compared to google's stats which show each visitor visited your site once, with a small number visiting more than once - this sounds more realistic to me.

Update

Googles definition of a visit:

"Visits represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to your site. If a user is inactive on your site for 30 minutes or more, any future activity will be attributed to a new session. Users that leave your site and return within 30 minutes will be counted as part of the original session."
www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57164

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