The key difference between these dynamic and non-dynamic page metadata query parameters is as follows: Dynamic Section and Author Group and Filter queries metadata at the pageview level, whereas the non-dynamic Section and Author parameters return aggregate stats at the URL level. So if the page metadata is updated for a given page of your site, say moved from the Sports to the Politics section, the Dynamic Section parameters allow your team to query the precise number of pageviews received for each section uniquely, before and after the story was moved between sections. For this reason, we almost always recommend utilizing the Dynamic Section, or Dynamic Author parameters in your queries instead of the Section and Author parameters.
Another factor that can cause differences between your query stats when using these different parameter types is issues with the Chartbeat tracking code implemented in your site's codebase. If implementation of Section and Author data in your site's Chartbeat tracking code is completed with 100% accuracy and consistency across platforms, these two different parameters should return the same stats for the majority of your team's queries. However, we see that it's rather common for errors in the tracking code deployment to cause small or significant discrepancies in customers' section and author queries. To learn more about this issue, see additional details below...
Example scenario A: Incomplete section tagging causes low Dynamic Section stats in my query
Your analytics team implemented section data in the Chartbeat code on your desktop website code template, but left out section data from the Chartbeat tag in the mobile website template, causing your Dynamic Section query to return low stats because only pageviews to your desktop site are included in the query results.
Example scenario B: Incorrect author tagging causes high Author stats in my query
The non-dynamic section or author parameter returns aggregate data on every page that was ever tagged with the given section or author. So if your homepage was previously tagged with an author name, even if only for a handful of pageviews before the issue was corrected in your site's Chartbeat code, all homepage pageviews for your selected query date range will be (erroneously) attributed to that author in the query results of your non-dynamic Author query.
Should your organization encounter similar implementation related issues as described above leading to inaccurate section or author data in your Advanced Query reports, we recommend that the team responsible for the Chartbeat tracking implementation review and fix the section/author tag gaps in your site-wide Chartbeat code and continue using the Dynamic Section/Author parameters to retrieve accurate results going forward once the tagging issue is corrected.