Adsense and Sensibility

Returning to the chart I used in yesterday's post on Google Adsense (shown below; see Apples to Apples for an explanation of the data in the chart), I had the idea to check Google's numbers against the statistics from my own server log for mark-weeks.com (see Log Wallowing for an introduction).

It turns out that Google's numbers compare fairly well. For the months of February and March, Google reported slightly higher numbers than my server did on my World Chess Championship pages (100-105% of my numbers). The web juggernaut also reported lower figures on my Ex-About.com Material pages (85-90% of mine).

There are several possible explanations for the differences. The exact time period covered by the two sets of statistics is certainly different and different browsers undoubtedly handle cached pages in different ways. For the larger difference in the Ex-About.com Material, I'm not absolutely certain that all of my pages have a link to Adsense.

All in all, I'm satisfied with the comparison. I had reason to believe that Google might be underreporting the numbers, but that's not the case. If I'm disappointed in any of Google's stats, it's my own responsibility.