Saturday, November 7, 2015

StatCounter × 10

The Internet service StatCounter has just given its paid users a tenfold increase in log size. Meaning: an account that recorded a website’s last 5000 visits now records the last 50,000.

Are stats important? Not really. Are they endlessly, oddly fascinating? Yes. It’s thanks to stats that I know, for instance, that people from the House and Senate (staffers, no doubt) have visited these pages looking for advice on if I was and if I were . And it’s always interesting (if a bit dispiriting) to see journalists poking around (more often than one might expect). I guess they have to get their information somewhere .

I started using StatCounter with a free account in 2005 and switched to a paid account a few years later. My only relation to StatCounter is that of a happy customer.

comments: 4

Chris said...

My impression is that StatCounter (I use the free version) misses a lot of legitimate visits, but that Blogger's own pageview counter fails to filter out a ton of referrer spam. (Either that or I have an awful lot of followers in Russia and the Ukraine.)

Michael Leddy said...

StatCounter might miss some visits because of Disconnect and Ghostery and such. Blogger’s numbers seem less reliable. I’ve never known what to make of the “followers” feature.

Fresca said...

Hm. Maybe I'll try the free version... Bloggers stats don't tell me much.
But then, I worry about knowing too much, too [not sure I want to know more about who's checking in].

Chris said...

I think the etiquette is the same as it is for skinny-dipping: as long as one pretends not to look it's okay.