Often you want to compare the data from different web analytics tools together, for example comparing Matomo reports with Google Analytics reports and find whether they are similar or whether one is tracking more or less data than the other.
When you compare compare Google Analytics reports and metrics to the equivalent in Matomo, you should expect both Matomo and Google Analytics reports to be very similar and no more than 5% or 10% different for numbers of visits/sessions, pageviews, etc. (Except if your Google Analytics reports are sampled while Matomo is always accurate and does not sample data).
When you compare Matomo reports to another web analytics tool, there are several aspects to consider that could explain why numbers are different between the different analytics solutions. Please find the list below:
DoNotTrack support: Matomo (Piwik) by default respects the DoNotTrack setting. If visitors have selected not to be tracked in their browser, Matomo will not collect information about them. If you suspect many of your users are using DoNotTrack, you can disable it in the Privacy settings. This features works in the JavaScript tracker. When importing logs all visitors and actions will be tracked as DoNotTrack is not available in server log files.
Bots and Spiders tracking: By default Matomo uses a Javascript tracker which automatically only records “real” human activity and excludes all bot activity. This leads to more accurate reports. If you compare Matomo reports to Google Analytics and notice a large discrepancies (over 5%) you may try to disable bot tracking in GA. To do this in Google Analytics go to Admin settings and navigate to View Settings under the View panel. Find the checkbox “Exclude traffic from known bots and spiders” and select it. Then both Matomo and Google Analytics will exclude all bot traffic. (PS: Matomo can be configured to enable tracking of search engine bots).
Presence of Javascript code tag: when comparing Javascript-based statistics (eg. number of unique visitors), you have to make sure that both javascript tags are present on all pages you want to track. If you’re seeing some pages that are tracked in one tool but not the other, maybe you have forgotten to add one of the JavaScript tracking codes on some of your pages.
Position of Javascript code tag: it is recommended to put the Matomo tracking code at the end of your </head> tag in your pages.
Higher “Direct Entry” visits in Matomo When tracking the acquisition source of visitors, Google Analytics stores and uses campaign data for up to 6 months and attributes subsequent direct entry visits to the original campaign acquisition source. (So Google Analytics will report a higher number of visits attributed to “Campaigns” because these visits used a campaign in the previous 6 months.)Whereas Matomo tracks any new “Direct Entry” visits as direct entries and does not attribute these new “Direct Entry” visits to their original acquisition source. With Matomo’s Multi Channel Conversion Attribution plugin, you can apply different attribution models to your goal conversions.
Identifying Visitors: Matomo uses a javascript based tracker, and keeps count of unique visitors using a first party uuid cookie, as well as a visitor recognition heuristics algorithm (based on IP address and user settings: learn more). Some other tools only use cookies, only use IP, or a combination: we found that the way Matomo tracks visitors gives us really good accuracy and avoids creating artificial visits.
Tracking method: Other softwares which are using server logs) for data analytics (such as AWStats, Webalizer, Analog, or any custom server-side data collection script) would record all traffic, including search bots or spam bots. When your Matomo numbers are much smaller than your other tool, check that you are comparing Matomo with a similar web analytics tool which can also exclude all bots and spam traffic like Matomo does.