How do I figure out how many visits my website gets?
January 8, 2009 6:50 PM
How do I figure out how many visits my website gets? My domain is registered with 1 and 1 Web Hosting, and I have the beginner package.
What if you don't want Google to have all that data?
posted by Chuckles at 7:05 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by Chuckles at 7:05 PM on January 8, 2009
Check the log files. A good free analysis program is awstats. The hosting provider probably has a log analysis option.
posted by sammyo at 7:08 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by sammyo at 7:08 PM on January 8, 2009
There are tons of free site meters to choose from (check Google for "free site meter" and "free site counter"). I like this one.
posted by amyms at 7:10 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by amyms at 7:10 PM on January 8, 2009
Second for sitemeter
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 8:18 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 8:18 PM on January 8, 2009
You've made your first pass at promoting your web site. You listed in all the important search engines, established link partnerships with like-minded sites, perhaps started an opt-in newsletter, even did some offline advertising. Count on doing that forever. But you also need to know how effective your activities have been. The first thing you realize is that counter you put on your home page doesn't tell you a thing. Let's see, you had 78 hits today. Great, now who were they? Don't know? OK, where did they come from? Who sent them? You mean I can find that out?
You also discover through a complimentary email message that Wilson Alvarez in Brazil really liked your mouse trails tutorial; but, your hit counter didn't increment. How could that be? Well, did you put a counter on every single page of your site, or just on the home page? Rest assured, when the search engines spidered your pages, they didn't list all the keywords they found as belonging to your entry page. People actually do enter your site right smack dab in the middle. Ugh, you say, I hadn't counted on that.
Counters are a crap-shoot. Get rid of your counter. It serves no productive purpose. If the numbers are low, people think your site isn't popular. If the numbers are high, people think you lie. Most of all, they don't tell you a thing you need to know about your site's traffic. That is where trackers come in. If you are using low cost web hosting services, you can also use free tracker software. There are several good ones available, just do a search for free web site tracking. Look at some of their sample statistics.
What did you think? Impressive isn't it? You get a quick summary page telling you how many hits and page views you've had today, this week, and this month. You get visitor detail like when they came and what domain they were from. Want to know how many pages they looked at on your site while they were there? Check out the reload stats. You can see information about the browser they used, the operating system on their computer, what country they are from, and how big their monitor is. But best of all, you can determine how they found your site. Focus on the referrer statistics. That will tell you where they clicked from; whether it be a search engine — with the query terms they entered — or a link from one of your buddies. When you get good at this, you'll discover it's a lot of fun. More importantly, you can leverage this information in your business.
There is, however, one missing piece of the puzzle. How do you know where they entered your site? You could setup a separate account for every single page of your site, but that would be tedious, and wouldn't really be fair to the free tracking service. For this information, you truly need your own domain. Generally, all web hosts provide tracking software when you open an account with your own domain. Since the tracking is then done on the server, rather than in the browser client, you can also now determine the entry page. Great information to know. You can tell potential advertisers "this is my hottest page", and adjust rates accordingly. You can find out what interests your guests about the site and put even more development effort into that area.
Web site promotion involves statistical analysis of its effectiveness. You must determine what has helped, and what hasn't. Insure you are recording activity to every page of your site, not just the home page, whether it be with a free service or through your web host.
posted by netbros at 8:21 PM on January 8, 2009
You also discover through a complimentary email message that Wilson Alvarez in Brazil really liked your mouse trails tutorial; but, your hit counter didn't increment. How could that be? Well, did you put a counter on every single page of your site, or just on the home page? Rest assured, when the search engines spidered your pages, they didn't list all the keywords they found as belonging to your entry page. People actually do enter your site right smack dab in the middle. Ugh, you say, I hadn't counted on that.
Counters are a crap-shoot. Get rid of your counter. It serves no productive purpose. If the numbers are low, people think your site isn't popular. If the numbers are high, people think you lie. Most of all, they don't tell you a thing you need to know about your site's traffic. That is where trackers come in. If you are using low cost web hosting services, you can also use free tracker software. There are several good ones available, just do a search for free web site tracking. Look at some of their sample statistics.
What did you think? Impressive isn't it? You get a quick summary page telling you how many hits and page views you've had today, this week, and this month. You get visitor detail like when they came and what domain they were from. Want to know how many pages they looked at on your site while they were there? Check out the reload stats. You can see information about the browser they used, the operating system on their computer, what country they are from, and how big their monitor is. But best of all, you can determine how they found your site. Focus on the referrer statistics. That will tell you where they clicked from; whether it be a search engine — with the query terms they entered — or a link from one of your buddies. When you get good at this, you'll discover it's a lot of fun. More importantly, you can leverage this information in your business.
There is, however, one missing piece of the puzzle. How do you know where they entered your site? You could setup a separate account for every single page of your site, but that would be tedious, and wouldn't really be fair to the free tracking service. For this information, you truly need your own domain. Generally, all web hosts provide tracking software when you open an account with your own domain. Since the tracking is then done on the server, rather than in the browser client, you can also now determine the entry page. Great information to know. You can tell potential advertisers "this is my hottest page", and adjust rates accordingly. You can find out what interests your guests about the site and put even more development effort into that area.
Web site promotion involves statistical analysis of its effectiveness. You must determine what has helped, and what hasn't. Insure you are recording activity to every page of your site, not just the home page, whether it be with a free service or through your web host.
posted by netbros at 8:21 PM on January 8, 2009
Get a better and cheaper host that will provide you with this date in the admin interface:
http://www.hostgator.com/
posted by yoyo_nyc at 8:30 PM on January 8, 2009
http://www.hostgator.com/
posted by yoyo_nyc at 8:30 PM on January 8, 2009
Log in to your control panel. Click the Administration tab. Under the Website Applications category, click WebStatistics. You'll find visitor stats, referrers, geographies, page rankings, and so on--pretty much any data you need and then some.
posted by prinado at 9:05 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by prinado at 9:05 PM on January 8, 2009
Um, yeah, that's quite the cut and paste netbros...
It looks like the 1and1 beginner package doesn't include an access log analyzer, for that you need to pay another $1/month. Of you could see about setting up awstats or webalizer, downloading your log files, and processing them on your home computer. There are a few issues with this approach though, first, the logs are usually only processed at night, so you can't check in during the day. The other issue is that they don't always do a good job of filtering out bots.
Another option is to use some sort of app you can install on your hosting and put a tracking javascript on your page. Advantages: updated in real time, info about browser capabilities (screen size, etc), and the use of javascript & cookies makes it possible to track returning visitors, and distinguish between different users behind the same proxy (doesn't work for people with javascript and/or cookies blocked, but they usually fall back to a tracking image, so they still get counted. Unfortunately, I don't know of any up-to-date scripts that do this. The one I was using hasn't been updated 4-5 years. There are some commercial options, like Urchin, but its probably not worth the money for a small site.
There are also hosted services that work pretty much the same way:
Google Analytics, Statcounter, Have A Mint, and others. They may not update their reports in real time, but some seem to do it multiple times a day.
There is also Quantcast, which does give you visit stats, but doesn't necessarily update even daily. It is interesting because it will give you some demographic info about yours users (though it might not be very accurate, especially if you have a smaller site.
I mostly rely on Google Analytics.
posted by Good Brain at 11:50 PM on January 8, 2009
It looks like the 1and1 beginner package doesn't include an access log analyzer, for that you need to pay another $1/month. Of you could see about setting up awstats or webalizer, downloading your log files, and processing them on your home computer. There are a few issues with this approach though, first, the logs are usually only processed at night, so you can't check in during the day. The other issue is that they don't always do a good job of filtering out bots.
Another option is to use some sort of app you can install on your hosting and put a tracking javascript on your page. Advantages: updated in real time, info about browser capabilities (screen size, etc), and the use of javascript & cookies makes it possible to track returning visitors, and distinguish between different users behind the same proxy (doesn't work for people with javascript and/or cookies blocked, but they usually fall back to a tracking image, so they still get counted. Unfortunately, I don't know of any up-to-date scripts that do this. The one I was using hasn't been updated 4-5 years. There are some commercial options, like Urchin, but its probably not worth the money for a small site.
There are also hosted services that work pretty much the same way:
Google Analytics, Statcounter, Have A Mint, and others. They may not update their reports in real time, but some seem to do it multiple times a day.
There is also Quantcast, which does give you visit stats, but doesn't necessarily update even daily. It is interesting because it will give you some demographic info about yours users (though it might not be very accurate, especially if you have a smaller site.
I mostly rely on Google Analytics.
posted by Good Brain at 11:50 PM on January 8, 2009
Cut and paste from my own website. I wrote it. Is that OK with you Mr. Brain?
posted by netbros at 5:32 AM on January 9, 2009
posted by netbros at 5:32 AM on January 9, 2009
Cut and paste from my own website. I wrote it. Is that OK with you Mr. Brain?
Sure. Remember you just jacked with your own SEO rankings, though. ;)
posted by nitsuj at 6:21 AM on January 9, 2009
Sure. Remember you just jacked with your own SEO rankings, though. ;)
posted by nitsuj at 6:21 AM on January 9, 2009
Thanks nitsuj. No problem. It's all so 1999 anyway. :)
posted by netbros at 6:34 AM on January 9, 2009
posted by netbros at 6:34 AM on January 9, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
They will give you a piece of code to insert at the end of your site's footer...
posted by nitsuj at 6:54 PM on January 8, 2009