--- title: Your analytics are lying to you | daily.dev description: Web analytics tools like Google Analytics and Plausible systematically undercount visitors due to ad blockers, JavaScript errors, network failures, corporate... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Your analytics are lying to you | daily.dev og:description: Web analytics tools like Google Analytics and Plausible systematically undercount visitors due to ad blockers, JavaScript errors, network failures, corporate... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/TINIkpi9M.png og:image:alt: Your analytics are lying to you og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Your analytics are lying to you **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Web analytics tools like Google Analytics and Plausible systematically undercount visitors due to ad blockers, JavaScript errors, network failures, corporate proxies, RSS readers, and browsers with limited JS support. Server logs can show up to 3x more traffic than analytics dashboards. Relying solely on analytics data for product decisions means ignoring a large segment of real users who are invisible to tracking scripts. The recommendation is to treat analytics as an approximation, supplement with server logs, test on real devices, and talk directly to users. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why does my Plausible or Google Analytics traffic count seem lower than my actual server logs? JavaScript-based analytics tools undercount visitors for many reasons: ad-blockers and tracking prevention (enabled by default in many browsers), network errors, JavaScript crashes elsewhere on the page, users leaving before the page finishes loading, disabled JavaScript, browsers with limited JS support like Opera Mini, and services that strip JavaScript entirely such as RSS readers, Telegram Instant View, and AMP. One website reported server logs showing three times the traffic seen in its Plausible dashboard. _Anyone debugging traffic discrepancies can compare notes on analytics blind spots and web tracking on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Do ad blockers block Plausible Analytics?](https://daily.dev/posts/do-ad-blockers-block-plausible-analytics--89ngldmum) · Plausible Analytics · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Developer’s Way to Track Traffic: Self-Hosting Ackee or Plausible](https://daily.dev/posts/the-developer-s-way-to-track-traffic-self-hosting-ackee-or-plausible-89bg31qfb) · Ruby Flow · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How 73% of Your E-commerce Visitors Could Be Fake](https://daily.dev/posts/how-73-of-your-e-commerce-visitors-could-be-fake-elagxufyy) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Blind Spot Between Back‐End Metrics and User Experience](https://daily.dev/posts/the-blind-spot-between-back-end-metrics-and-user-experience-h907tu8hy) · DevOps.com · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to check your own website traffic accurately](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-check-your-own-website-traffic-accurately-ik83ixav4) · Plausible Analytics · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#javascript](https://daily.dev/tags/javascript) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Your analytics are lying to you","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m"},"datePublished":"2026-07-23T18:40:09.642Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:30:41.836Z","description":"Web analytics tools like Google Analytics and Plausible systematically undercount visitors due to ad blockers, JavaScript errors, network failures, corporate...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"webdev,javascript","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Your analytics are lying to you"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-analytics-are-lying-to-you-tinikpi9m#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why does my Plausible or Google Analytics traffic count seem lower than my actual server logs?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"JavaScript-based analytics tools undercount visitors for many reasons: ad-blockers and tracking prevention (enabled by default in many browsers), network errors, JavaScript crashes elsewhere on the page, users leaving before the page finishes loading, disabled JavaScript, browsers with limited JS support like Opera Mini, and services that strip JavaScript entirely such as RSS readers, Telegram Instant View, and AMP. One website reported server logs showing three times the traffic seen in its Plausible dashboard. Anyone debugging traffic discrepancies can compare notes on analytics blind spots and web tracking on daily.dev."}}]} ```