Being a small business on the web creates its own challenges, most often the challenge of a tiny budget. A web developer might be asked to provide a way to simply track visitors to a web site and naturally Google Analytics is suggested as it’s free, has great visual reporting of data, and is maintained by arguably the biggest name in the internet: Google!
But here’s the catch: Google Analytics is not a hit counter.
Analytics is a powerful and useful tool for spotting changes in user trends, seeing rises and falls in traffic and the like. It is not this decade’s answer to those crummy hit counter gifs from the 90’s.
There’s a million different reasons why the numbers given in Analytics isn’t 100% accurate. The tracking code can be blocked by the user, the code may not be implemented right by the developer (not that, surely not that 
) and so on. This doesn’t detract from the power of the tool however, with a little study Analytics can be a great insight into your visitor base.
Just don’t call your Developer or Marketer and claim they’re a bunch of liars because there numbers don’t match what’s in Analytics!