Why is there a difference in Analog and Webalizer web stat reports?

[hariskhan]

1) Why is there a difference in Analog and Webalizer web stat reports?

This is a big headache when explaining to non-technical customers...

2) Why do we have 3 difference web analyzers? Is there any difference in their purpose?

3) Which one of the reports should one trust? analog? webalizer? urchin?

 

[chirpy]

They'll always be different because they're run against the web logs at different times and they use different algorithms for calculating averages and percentages (for example "visits" is not a science, more a wet finger in the air statistic). Also, some of them might have minor bugs, some might reject log entries that others don't, etc.

You have a variety so that you have a choice. We tend to limit stats to the prettiest (because few people really truley use them for anything other than trend analysis) and so enabled Webalizer and Awstats and disable Analog (cPanel doesn't come with Urchin, your NOC must have added that).

As to which one I'd trust - Analog is probably the most accurate, but tedious to wade through. Webalizer is a nice overview but prone to errors at times. I like AwStats, it's attractive and easily navigated and seems to be accurate, but it quite resource intensive.