&gt; No 3rd party analytics service can provide more accurate data than server logs. None<p>This is very, very wrong. Parsing server logs can give you a lot of data but parsing the data directly from the client (ala Google analytics) can give you so, so much more. Data about the client itself, demographic information (beyond ip address locations) and information regarding their interests when hooked into a system that&#x27;s present on many other sites.<p>Server logs are a great starting point but the amount of relevant data a third party service can give you is so great most are willing to make the tradeoff and use them. I&#x27;d rather have all analytics in house but that extra data can be invaluable.