You may want to do a direct comparison between the Most Popular / Most Viewed widget on your website and what Google Analytics is reporting.

You will see discrepancies between the two systems.

Here's how the Most Popular articles are determined on your website:

• Two system settings articles.popular.days and popular.stories.limit - control both the timeframe and how many articles appear in the widget.
• The views are calculated in real time.
• Based on a cache of one hour, the Most Popular widget is updated with real-time data

In contrast, Google Analytics may be off due to the difference in real-time reporting between the two tools. Per Google's own documentation, it can take up to 24 hours before it has processed the data for reporting.

Learn more about Google's approach here:

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008080?hl=en&vid=1-635766463146225847-739933956