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I'm running into an issue where, depending on how I look at a goal within Google Analytics, the numbers differ from the Goal Completions Overview to the Goal Funnel numbers. Goal Completions Overview is reporting 1,973 and the Goal Funnel states 595 visitors finished the funnel. The conversion rate is the same for both.

My initial thought is that perhaps the Goal Completions Overview is more related to multiple pageviews per visitor and the Funnel reports on the exact number of visitors, but I am not certain.

Does anyone have any insight on this?

Glenn B
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    Goals can be completed only once per session, so multiple pageview per visitors is not your problem. Maybe you have set up multiple goals with the same goal url ? In that case the overview would overstate the value since it would report every goal with that url as completed; however the funnel would report the correct number for the given goal. – Eike Pierstorff Feb 21 '13 at 08:03
  • After some more digging, that's almost exactly what was happening. We found that the goal URL for our specific goal was actually being used as a "Thank you" page for another form completion. – Glenn B Feb 21 '13 at 13:16

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This will happen when you set the first step of the goal as a required step. The required step only applies to the funnel and not to the goal completion on other reports.

So whenever a user reaches your goal page from any path that will generate a goal completion but not in the funnel unless the user had first visited your required step.

Eduardo
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