> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://chrisenns.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# On The Internet, the Rules Are Made Up And The Points Don't Matter
- URL: https://chrisenns.com/2022/04/on-the-internet-the-rules-are-made-up-and-the-points-dont-matter/
- Published: 2022-04-28T06:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-04-08T18:56:02.000Z
- Description: If I, or some hypothetical manager, put too much stock into these metrics I could see it causing a firestorm of reprioritization based on bot traffic. We’d be chasing the tail of a health check bot somewhere in Germany.
- Author: Chris Enns
- Tags: blogging, Internet, stats

Again linking to Uncle Dave - this time on [website analytics](https://daverupert.com/2022/04/server-side-vs-client-side-analytics/?ref=chrisenns.com):

> If I, or some hypothetical manager, put too much stock into these metrics I could see it causing a firestorm of reprioritization based on bot traffic. We’d be chasing the tail of a health check bot somewhere in Germany.

Your eyes may glaze over at the thought of reading about website traffic data, but it's worth a read as Dave compares a couple of services ([Netlify](https://netlify.com/?ref=chrisenns.com) vs [Fathom](https://usefathom.com/ref/YGPGBL?ref=chrisenns.com)) and finds massive discrepancies in their reporting. It's not that anyone is doing anything shady or illegal either. That's just how unreliable web analytics are.

And yet I know there are people, businesses, and even yours truly who have made pretty big decisions on projects based around these kinds of numbers. I kept doing a podcast because my analytics told me there were potentially hundreds of listeners when in fact it was somewhere under 50\. I've written blog posts chasing Google traffic that I thought was legitimate, when actually a lot of it was probably bots.

My ego wanted to believe the lies. My brain kind of always knew there wasn't anyone actually listening.

> Probably old advice, but you need a mixture of quantitative AND qualitative data to make good decisions.

I don't think you should throw out web analytics completely. If you have a lot more traffic one month than the previous, that still might mean *something*. But view it all with a healthy level of skepticism, and try to keep your the core DNA of whatever you're doing with the website intact.