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I mean server-side measurements for a mobile version that does not require JavaScript, unlike the standard Google Analytics code, but uses a 1×1px image, so it also registers accesses from ordinary telephones, not just smartphones, which usually can be tracked by standard GA code.
It is a little bit different than this article (segment differentiating mobile visitors to the site standard). Similar function (measuring mobile traffic also provides AdMob (bought by Google last year) and Bango.

At first you must download the ZIP file from the address http://www.google.com/analytics/googleanalyticsformobile.zip - this archive contains instructions and codes for PHP, ASP, Java and Perl. Implementation is only a little more demanding, it is necessary to add a code on top of the page (before the html mark) and the other one at the end of the /body. UA in your account ID will be replaced by MO. The readme file explicitly says that the code should not be used with JavaScript code (makes sense).

I tried this measuring code in the mobile version of my website, m.vtelevizi.cz (TV guide). It does not have too much traffic, but they are different kinds of carriers and phone models. Also the site has been measured by AdMob for a few months.

Phone identification

So far it seems to me that the top AdMob. While the GA recognizes only Symbian / Windows /… iPhone, AdMob recognizes individual phones (specifically see eg Nokia 6300 and E51), which may be valuable information for screen size (which you can show in a special statistics in AdMob). AdMob probably uses the X-wap-profile - link to XML file describing the phone capabilities, such as the Nokia N95 is http://nds1.nds.nokia.com/uaprof/NN95-1r100.xml (more on Wikipedia). You can access this data by variable $_SERVER[„HTTP_X_ WAP_PROFILE“]. I wondered if the TAC Code (part of IMEI) would be available to someone else than carrier.

Carrier identification

AdMob is better here too - it shows portions of Czech mobile operators in a better way with the right names.

Usually you can recognize operator by IP address (or the prefix). You need to test it from your phone. You can try http://dev.elfineer.cz/mobil, you should be able to see IP and X-wap-profile (from your phone of course).

Pageviews and visits

Quite a surprise to me was significant difference between the measured data of both services. Pageviews measured in the same period (3/2–16/2) are more or less same (GA: 2179, AdMob: 2136 (ie around 2% other). This may be caused by the fact that the code of AdMob is below to GA.

But 509 of Visits (GA) and 707 (AdMob), it is quite a big difference in such small numbers. Other data such as search terms and others are at this site is too small, so that it is impossible to conclude anything.

Do you have any experience in comparison of AdMob and Google Analytics for mobile?

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