Google Analytics lies

Google Analytics lies. Since May 2023, I've been adding daily stats to my Excel sheet. I also have a plugin that displays the traffic, and I monitor the traffic via Wordfence. I know my traffic well because I also see my daily AdSense income.

I didn’t have time to check and note the stats over the last five days, and today, when I checked Analytics, I noticed that all the old stats had changed. Analytics has increased all my stats — when I had 60 daily visits, it now shows 120.

This issue has only affected one of my sites. All the stats are wrong; I have data from July 2023, and as of last weekend, everything was correct. But today, I see all the results are off. Where it showed 80, it now shows 95, etc.

To monitor traffic, I use Google Analytics, the Burst plugin, and Wordfence Live Traffic. Each of these tools calculates and displays traffic statistics independently, and their data has always matched. Now Google Analytics is showing incorrect numbers. It’s not just today's statistics that are wrong — all the previous data has been altered as well.

My previous Analytics stats from 2023 (kept in my Excel sheet):

01.07.2023 - 82 daily unique visits
02.07.2023 - 85 daily unique visits
03.07.2023 - 95 daily unique visits

Today Analytics shows me these stats:

01.07.2023 - 90 daily unique visits
02.07.2023 - 98 daily unique visits
03.07.2023 - 109 daily unique visits

***

My previous Analytics stats from this August (kept in my Excel sheet):

19.08.2024 - 93 daily unique visits
20.08.2024 - 102 daily unique visits
21.08.2024 - 81 daily unique visits

Today Analytics shows me these stats:

19.08.2024 - 103 daily unique visits
20.08.2024 - 116 daily unique visits
21.08.2024 - 91 daily unique visits

***

Some of the results have increased by almost 1.5 times. Where there used to be 60, it’s now almost 120; where it was 40, it’s now 70, etc.

 

My traffic dropped significantly in May 2023. Previously, I used to have around 150 daily unique visits. Since May 2023, the traffic dropped to 60 and continued to decline. I began adding new posts and editing old ones, but the traffic kept falling. Since May 2023, I've written more than 200 new posts and rewritten over 100 old ones. The traffic eventually stopped dropping but stabilized at around 70-75 daily unique visits.

This May, the traffic dropped again to about 50 visits per day, which also impacted my AdSense income. Then, two weeks ago, I noticed a sudden traffic increase, reflected in my AdSense earnings. I checked Analytics, and the traffic increase was recorded there as well.

Everything was accurate until today when I noticed that all my previous stats were wrong. They were still correct five days ago, but now everything is off.

All the previously recorded statistics (from May 2023) in Analytics do not match what Analytics is showing now. I have results recorded in Excel since last May, but today Analytics has changed all those numbers. It could have happened today, or maybe yesterday — I’m not sure because I haven’t checked for the last five days. Maybe the glitch occurred on the 1st, maybe 2nd or 3rd of Septemeber.

 

Has anyone else had their old Google Analytics stats changed suddenly?

 

Many users face similar issues, where data appears to change unexpectedly, leading to confusion about what's accurate. Double-checking settings, or reaching out to Google Support could help clarify if this is a system glitch or something else at play.

 

No, Google Analytics just changed all my starts from May 2023 to August 2024.
All my previous stats are lost because of the stupid new Analytics version.
I use not only Google Analytics but also check my daily unique organic visits using Wordfence and I also use a plugin to see the traffic.
I used to have 135-185 daily unique visits (organic) until May 2023 when Google suddenly removed my site from all first pages.
This August the traffic suddenly came back.
And from the September 1st, all my Google Analytics stats were changed.
There was no error because the Analytics stats always matched the Wordefence and plugin stats results.
From May 2023 to August 2024 my traffic was from 35 to 60 daily unique and it was not possible to count wrong.
I have no idea why my traffic suddenly dropped, then suddenly came back and the Analytics changed all stats.
I could understand if they would change the results of the last weeks or month, but not the results of the last 18 months.

 

I have seen Analytics do this at least 3-4 times in the last 15 years. Once I continued from a completely different account. Twice it went back to its previous state.

There could be a few explanations for this. The most important reason is that we should not ignore the fact that Analytics sometimes counts bots as "visitors".

 

Yes the stats have changed. We never get accurate data from Analytics, it hides many things such as your would see traffic sources as '\' not available source.