why does my built in traffic monitor and google analytics show drasticly different?

[mrHunt]

so my built in traffic monitor in my host ( its awstats) and google analytics show drasticly different traffic results on a consistant basis. i know that google code is installed correctly (i hope?!?!) but it consistantly shows a much lower hits to my website than awstats does....

why would this be?
which should i believe to be true?

google will show around 50 or so unique hits a day on my site
awstats will show upwards of 200 unquies on the same day

every aspect of traffic is drasticly different between teh 2.....what gives?

mrHunt Reviewed by mrHunt on 21st Nov 2011. why does my built in traffic monitor and google analytics show drasticly different? so my built in traffic monitor in my host ( its awstats) and google analytics show drasticly different traffic results on a consistant basis. i know that google code is installed correctly (i hope?!?!) but it consistantly shows a much lower hits to my website than awstats does.... why would this be? which should i believe to be true? google will show around 50 or so unique hits a day on my site awstats will show upwards of 200 unquies on the same day every aspect of traffic is Rating: 5

[Gavo]

AwStats uses the server logs to make reports so its far more reliable

[Mr Happy]

A while ago it was suggested to put the Google code in the bottom of your page so it didn't slow the loading of your site as all javascript slows the loading of a page. Google updated their code so it doesn't slow loading and now suggest it's placed in the header. If you have your code in the footer you could not be tracking loads of people as quiet a lot of people close a page before it's fully finished loading.
Another point to note is awstats can count bots, search engines and other similar scripts or people who don't have Javascript. Add to this the fact it counts requests so someone is counted as a visitor even if they only download 1% of a page but in reality that's not a visitor.

No stat counter is perfect and your better off reading them both and using an average to draw your conclusions.