Tough Week for a Stats Junkie
byI have to admit, I love looking at my stats. I’m not being vain, and I don’t want to spy on people, I just think it’s interesting. The two programs I use are Stat Counter and Site Meter. Naturally the numbers and visits displayed on each vary greatly, but they both have their upsides. I use Stat Counter because the number of visits seems more accurate and Site Meter is better for recent referrals, and to find out what people are typing into search engines that’s leading them to your site. Unfortunately though, Site Meter’s been down for about 4 days now.
The entire site isn’t down, just my server.
s25 – Update
We are aware of delays and lag on s25 and are doing are best to resolve it. In this case we had a particular site that has been running a promotion, nearly quadrupling their traffic. We’re working on relocation this site to another server. We expect to see the lag dissipate over the weekend [Site Meter Blog]
Since I’m on s25 I haven’t had any updates in days, and this also affects any stats I would use to calculate my monthly or yearly unique visitors – this being a number that comes in handy when trying to monetize a blog, eh. I’ll wait it out through the weekend but maybe it’s time to find another service.
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Though it doesn’t have some of the unique visitor detail that SiteMeter has, I’ve been really impressed with Google Analytics (http://analytics.google.com/). I put that on my blog, and on five other sites that I maintain, and the usage detail is pretty good. The stats are only updated once a night (approx. midnight eastern), but that works out pretty good for me since I don’t usually get to check until night-time.
Biggest upsides for GA
1. It’s FREE
2. No banners/links required
3. Really good tie-ins for Google AdSense adds (track conversions/clicks etc)
If you’re planning to monetize, particularly if you’re looking at trying out some Adsense ads, then it’s definitely worth a look! 🙂
I started to develop cold shakes from sitemeter withdrawal this week. The apparent death of my sitemeter has shown me how bad my addiction to it became. I’m unimpressed with how David Smith at Sitemeter has handled the problems. The problems started on Tuesday night and, despite growing furor on many blogs and emails to him, Sitemeter didn’t put any information out until Friday night. I too have switched to Google Analytics because of it.
I would echo the comments about Google Analytics – works well. There are also stats available via mybloglog which I see you have as well. Even typepad provides some stats.
I’ve used a bunch of different services like you, I’ve noticed though that their is little correlation of the stats between them! Something I would get frustrated by had I not sailed past my interest threshold for my own stats 🙂
im on s25 as well and this SUCKS!!!!!!
i’ve been referring to my stats that come with my host company way more accurate than site meter anyway but it just tracks EVERYTHING so it isn’t accurate in every regard so maybe i will get the other counter as well, i think i got sitemeter last june and gg is almost two my stats are screwed anyway.
You should really use statistics that analyze your web server log files, not just JavaScript/image based counters like Analytics, Site Meter, and StatCounter. I use both kinds, but the server logs are more complete. Your ISP should provide you something like AWStats, Webalizer, Analog, or whatever via your site control panel — or GoDaddy has its own stats package you can pay a bit extra for if you’re hosted there.