Big discrepancy in Google analytics and Site Catalyst visits

[mkp_de]

We use both Google Analytics and Site Catalyst V15. Recently we have seen a big discrepancy in visits. We are experiencing extra 12-15% visits in Site Catalyst compare to Google Analytics. Historically, we saw around 4-5% difference, which is acceptable . Is there any reason for this increase?

[HaiTechEric]

This sounds like an implementation change might be responsible for the jump in discrepancy. I would also audit the technology used to access your site to determine potential differences in sources of traffic (i.e. browsers blocking javascript, increase in bot traffic, etc.).

[Gigazelle · Accepted solution]

It's a stretch, but one of these points may point you in the right direction:

http://microsite.omniture.com/t2/help/en_US/home/index.html#kb-analytics-spikes-and-drops

If not, trend the visits report on both platforms and determine as close as possible the point to where you started seeing a larger discrepancy, and which platform rose or fell. Once you find out which platform made the change, ask around and see what changes were made to the implementation or site at that time.

[mkp_de]

Thanks for the reply. However we haven't done any implementation changes so I am not sure about that.

[JillsMatthew]

Are you seeing the discrepancy for this month?
Were you using SC14? 

From 1st Nov, SiteCatalyst report suites are migrated to v15 platform. The visits calculation in v15 is different from that of v14. You will see more visits in v15 because v15 include the visits from visitors that do not accept persistent cookies.

JM

[mkp_de]

Not sure I understand "From 1st Nov, SiteCatalyst report suites are migrated to v15 platform " because we have been using V15 since January 2013.

[JillsMatthew]

Ok, in your case then v15 is not the reason. Sorry for the confsuion.