I check my Google analytics on a regular basis to obviously see my daily hits and for some reason my UNIQUE VISITORS count dropped from 1770 to 1730 over a day. How this is possible?
I started to notice this about a week ago when I saw that my UNIQUE VISITORS count wasn't going over 1800 (which it should have considering the visits I receive). I receive an average of about 60 unique VISITS a day but even if it was 0 unique visits a day, it doesn't sound logical that my overall UNIQUE VISITORS count would drop.
Now I can't take GA seriously anymore ...
Anyone have this problem before and / or could shed any light on the matter?
The statistics are period based. When a day passes, the period (begin and end) advances a day as well. So is perfectly normal your total unique visits changes from one day to another, because the period changed too.
For example: lets suppose your site receive 60 unique visitors every single day. You check your Analytics today (13-08-2012) and see 1860 visits. That amout is the total unique visitors for the period from 13-07 until 12-08.
But lets say that your site receives only 10 visitors today. Tomorrow (14-08) you will see your total unique visitors drops from 1860 to 1810, because the period will be from 14-07 until 13-08.
