I had the same problem when using DART and ADKnowledge- they were either
closing the page faster than it could load or they were simply not being
counted. There are several variables such as browers that do not accept
cookies, cashing if the tracking is a 1-by-1 .gif, your site may have
been down several times and didn't register the hits. Etc.etc. It is not
always an exact science with stat softwares due to these variables and
many others. You can analyze your log files if it concerns you greatly
and compare down times to missed hits or visitors etc. At the end of the
day it is possible Overture has a bug and or Webtrends.
How could Overture have a bug? Server overload on their servers, the
click did not go directly to your site it in essence "timed-out" when
talking to the database with your "paid ad." It still counts the click.
It is possible that WebTrends may exclude known search engine robots
from their unique stats, where overture may be counting the robots as
clicks. This would be a considerable "missing" number of hits. These are
a few of the variables I would consider, however, I wouldn't be turned
off by paying for search engine robots, that is how you ended up at the
top of quite a few of the "free" search engines. If you can prove these
variables are the fault of Overture and not WebTrends I would ask for a
credit on your account to make up for the poor quality of service. If it
is WebTrends, then you may consider looking at DART from Double Click.
Sincerely,
Ryan A Gibson
Director of Marketing and Business Development
Ryan_at_kbitraining.com
Ph: 604-331-4471
Cell: 604-831-3400
Fax: 604-331-4478
www.kbitraining.com
Suite 410 938 Howe St.
Vancouver, BC
V6Z 1N9
Received on Wed Jun 12 2002 - 16:43:02 CDT
