Accurately counting pdf downloads: webalizer...how accurate exactly?

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1

Hi There,

I’m trying to get an accurate count of the pdf downloads from our website, both from clicks within the site and also from within emails and linkedin posts. However, it’s obvious that google analytics isn’t able to count direct downloads, so we’ve been looking at the webalizer stats for what we were hoping might be a more accurate count. The figures are vastly higher though: 20 downloads according to ga, and 40,000 according to webalizer.

So, what I’m wondering is how accurate are the webalizer stats for pdf downloads? I know overall web visit counts are bloated, but I always assumed for individual files it was relatively accurate.

Thanks for any assistance here.

Dan

2

Webalizer isn’t accurate at all imho, it counts all sorts of web trash bots and spiders and is hopelessly out of date.
Instead of linking to the pdf directly, creating a landing page for it should help gather some better stats.

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If you’re using WP, you can check out download manager which counts the downloads, encrypts the link and secure your download file.