Understanding Analytics: When Is a Page View Not a Page View?

CloudFlare provides an analytics dashboard for its users, offering insights into traffic data for websites on their network. Unlike Google Analytics, which uses beacon-based tracking and focuses on visitor behavior, CloudFlare tracks raw data about every request passing through its network. This allows it to provide metrics such as hits and bandwidth usage that cannot be obtained from Javascript-based beacons. However, the two services differ in their approach to page views, with Google Analytics following a more traditional model while CloudFlare adheres to an industry standard that may overcount page views for AJAX-driven sites. Ultimately, both services have their strengths and can provide valuable insights when used together.