Down Is Up – Google Analytics Comparison Graph Not Matching Data

Recently, an issue came to light with one of our clients which turned our world upside down – quite literally.

In the graph (shown below), Unique Pageviews vs. Pageviews was compared for a given date range for a select group of pages.
If you click on the image to zoom in, you’ll notice something weird. For some reason, the line of the Pageviews metric — which is higher in number — is lower visually than the unique pageviews.

What the @#$^ is happening?

The unique pageviews line (the higher of the lines) is graphed according to the y-axis scale on the left. What you probably didn’t notice is the pageviews line (the lower of the two lines) is graphed according to the secondary y-axis on the right. Yes, there is another y-axis on the right side.

Because the scales are different, they’re spatially and visually apples and oranges in terms of height.It’s a bit counter-intuitive and weird, but we thought we’d share this finding with you in case any runs into this issue and get’s confused.

Still confused? That’s ok. At least you know why now 🙂

Farid Alhadi

Sales Director An E-Norian for over a decade, having roles in Marketing, Creative Development, Design, Account Management, Content Development, and most recently, Sales and contracts. Farid graduated with a Bachelors of Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, with a background in Computer Science and Sociology. Farid has a strong background in customer service and communication, paying strong attention and intuition to clients’ needs.