1and1's visitor stats bite donkey balls
June 16, 2006 2:18 PM
My host doesn't count some visitors to my website. Why the heck not?
I use 1and1 to host my portfolio website. When I look at the user statistics, not once has it registered a user accessing my website using GCI.com, the cable internet provider in my area nor does it show any visits from anybody accessing from a state government computer (the largest employer in town and my workplace as well). I would suspect that these two sources should be the bulk of my visitors and, at the least, I should register when I visit my site from work. Obviously, these are errors. Why is it not counting them and what do I need to do to get a better idea of who is visiting my site? I hate the fact it is missing the very people I want so badly to see.
I use 1and1 to host my portfolio website. When I look at the user statistics, not once has it registered a user accessing my website using GCI.com, the cable internet provider in my area nor does it show any visits from anybody accessing from a state government computer (the largest employer in town and my workplace as well). I would suspect that these two sources should be the bulk of my visitors and, at the least, I should register when I visit my site from work. Obviously, these are errors. Why is it not counting them and what do I need to do to get a better idea of who is visiting my site? I hate the fact it is missing the very people I want so badly to see.
first question should have gone here http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/24899.
posted by sailormouth at 2:51 PM on June 16, 2006
posted by sailormouth at 2:51 PM on June 16, 2006
Jeebus, my search words must have been totally messed to have missed those. Thanks for the linkies.
posted by Foam Pants at 5:42 PM on June 16, 2006
posted by Foam Pants at 5:42 PM on June 16, 2006
It's funny, Foam Pants, I always find that 1and1's stats seem to be inflated. We had 40,000 unique visitors over a two day period a while back, but 1and1 showed over 80,000.
Anyway, as the poster of the first question, I would say getting AWStats up and running following those guidelines is easy, but I've had problems lately. Around December it just stopped counting. One day it just pooped out. I hadn't changed anything, I called 1and1 and they hadn't changed anything.
I ended up reinstalling it in March, when we had a significant spike in visitors. I couldn't get the crontab to work quite right and had to get it to update manually. Even then it wasn't counting all the visitors it should have and I haven't had time to run through the settings to get it running correctly again. I don't even know where to start, frankly.
Since you can't actually go in and change the settings on the 1and1 stats package, I would also suggest you get a Google Analytics account. Since it's for a portfolio and not a professional site for which you're trying to get advertisers, it's probably a good solution for you.
In the end, it's good to run a few programs to get a good idea of what's going on. When they were all running correctly, I was using AWStats, 1and1's package and Google Analytics. They'll generally show the same information, but I felt they gave me a more holistic picture of what was going on.
posted by Captaintripps at 5:58 AM on June 17, 2006
Anyway, as the poster of the first question, I would say getting AWStats up and running following those guidelines is easy, but I've had problems lately. Around December it just stopped counting. One day it just pooped out. I hadn't changed anything, I called 1and1 and they hadn't changed anything.
I ended up reinstalling it in March, when we had a significant spike in visitors. I couldn't get the crontab to work quite right and had to get it to update manually. Even then it wasn't counting all the visitors it should have and I haven't had time to run through the settings to get it running correctly again. I don't even know where to start, frankly.
Since you can't actually go in and change the settings on the 1and1 stats package, I would also suggest you get a Google Analytics account. Since it's for a portfolio and not a professional site for which you're trying to get advertisers, it's probably a good solution for you.
In the end, it's good to run a few programs to get a good idea of what's going on. When they were all running correctly, I was using AWStats, 1and1's package and Google Analytics. They'll generally show the same information, but I felt they gave me a more holistic picture of what was going on.
posted by Captaintripps at 5:58 AM on June 17, 2006
Captaintripps, awstats went werid in Dec/Jan because of how the tutorial setup the config file to look at logfile names. I had the same problem you described. I went back to the tutorial and saw that he changed the config file (page 2 the "LogFile=" line). I made the changes and everything started working again.
Other than that awstats has been great.
posted by sailormouth at 6:55 AM on June 17, 2006
Other than that awstats has been great.
posted by sailormouth at 6:55 AM on June 17, 2006
I'll give it a shot again. When I reinstalled I used the updated tutorial (noticed that, too), and it's still not updating on its own or correctly.
posted by Captaintripps at 8:04 AM on June 17, 2006
posted by Captaintripps at 8:04 AM on June 17, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
It is way better than stock 1and1 stats.
posted by sailormouth at 2:50 PM on June 16, 2006