# Why your numbers differ from Google Analytics

> Nvivio and Google Analytics count in different ways, so their numbers never match exactly. What makes the difference, and how to compare fairly.

Running Nvivio next to Google Analytics, or comparing it with what you had before? The numbers will not be the same, and that is expected: the two tools count different visitors in different ways. Here is what makes the difference, roughly from the largest to the smallest.

## Visitors who refuse cookies

In the EU, Google Analytics may only use its cookies after consent, so a cookie banner keeps every visitor who refuses or ignores it out of Google Analytics (or leaves them to be modelled). Nvivio sets no cookie in its default mode and needs no consent, so it counts those visitors too ([Privacy and GDPR](https://nvivio.com/docs/privacy#without-cookies-the-default)).

**Effect:** Nvivio usually shows more visitors and pageviews, sometimes much more, depending on how many of your visitors accept your banner.

## Bots

Nvivio keeps crawlers, scripts, headless browsers and traffic from data centres out of every number, and shows them apart on the [Bots](https://nvivio.com/docs/bots) tab. Other tools filter less, or differently.

**Effect:** on a site with many bots, Nvivio shows less traffic. The bottom of the Overview says how many bots were filtered out.

## Who counts as one visitor

- **Privacy mode** (the default) recognises a visitor within one day only, because the visitor code changes every day. Someone who comes on Monday and on Thursday is one visitor in each day, so over a week or a month your unique visitors are higher than Google Analytics' users, and returning visitors lower. [Cookie mode](https://nvivio.com/docs/privacy#with-one-cookie-optional) recognises visitors over months, as Google Analytics does.
- **A visit** ends after 30 minutes without activity.
- **Bounce rate** in Nvivio is the share of visits with one pageview and nothing else. Google Analytics 4 calls a session engaged when it lasts more than 10 seconds, has two pageviews or a key event, and its bounce rate is the rest, so it is usually lower.

## Visitors who are never counted

Nvivio does not count a browser that sends Global Privacy Control (such as Brave and DuckDuckGo), a visitor who [objected](https://nvivio.com/docs/privacy#visitors-can-object), [excluded IP addresses](https://nvivio.com/docs/settings#exclude-visits), or a paused site. Some ad blockers block Nvivio, some block Google Analytics, many block both.

## Time zones and days

Nvivio counts days in the site's time zone, Europe/Brussels unless you changed it through the API ([Time zone](https://nvivio.com/docs/settings#time-zone)). If your Google Analytics property uses another time zone, the same "day" covers other hours, and daily numbers move.

## Pages and sources

- Nvivio [cleans addresses](https://nvivio.com/docs/privacy#addresses-are-cleaned): unknown parameters are dropped, so `/pricing?session=123` and `/pricing` are one page. Your pages can therefore show fewer, larger rows.
- Pages that Chrome prerenders in the background only count when the visitor opens them.
- Sources are named by the site that sent the visitor, with AI assistants such as ChatGPT as a channel of their own ([AI traffic](https://nvivio.com/docs/ai)); channel names and groupings differ from Google's.

## Compare fairly

1. Take the same period, a full week or month that has already ended, in the same time zone.
2. Compare pageviews per page and the trend over time, rather than unique visitors.
3. Look at the size of the gap, not only at its direction: a steady gap is the difference in method; a gap that suddenly grows usually means one of the tools lost its script on some pages. [No data arrives](https://nvivio.com/docs/no-data) helps you check.