Stats Packages

Shovel

Can't get enough of FH
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Dec 22, 2003
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It seems that the stats tracking market is hotting up again since Google have gone public with Analytics this week. Mint is stunning to look at, at extensible via plug-ins (and is the first piece of software I've come across that happily expects webmasters viewing the stats to have dumped Internet Explorer 6 for something more CSS capable) and then there's the blog-centric MeasureMap rolling out an invitation-only alpha/beta.

That's three hugely polished new entrants on top of all the existing log analysers out there.

I rather like Google's effort. It's got some features I care less about (but look rather clever from an ecommerce point of view). And, whilst I'm initially cynical about anything that ignores browsers without JavaScript capabilities, requiring script does filter out referrer spam and crawler noise.

Mint I think I'd love, but can't really justify $30 for it with so many free alternatives. I've had a MeasureMap invite yet, but I'm on the list - they're planning tiered pricing with a 37Signals-esque free entry level offering.

So, I'm wondering what flavour stats analysis you lot take?
 

KevinUK

Can't get enough of FH
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Dec 22, 2003
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Thanks, reminded me I need to get some stats package. Google looks great but seems centered more for people who use their services like ad words so I'll give bbclone a go.
 

Shovel

Can't get enough of FH
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Dec 22, 2003
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Google's stuff does include Adwords stats, but I wouldn't say it was centred on it. There's a lot of very useful, general information in there too.

I tried the demo of bbClone: It looks functional, but it didn't seem to offer any breakdown of individual browser versions? Just grouping into IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari and so forth. MJK, is this correct? Is there really no way to find out which proportion of visitors use IE6 and which use IE5.5?

The decision on whether to drop CSS support for IE5.5 is a big one at the moment, something I'm personally doing on a site-by-site basis. A stats package which can't give me that level of breakdown strikes me as near-useless.

There's another one called ShortStat I believe, which I've also not tried.
 

MKJ

Fledgling Freddie
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Jun 5, 2004
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Bbclone is limited but handy. No resolution shown etc. I like to use both though - bbclone and statscounter. I can host bbclone and refer to it quickly. If I want a greater indepth analysis of the visitors and what pages they are visiting etc I load up statscounter. You can make the statscounter code invisible and just make a link to your statscounter page anywhere. I use a page on my desktop for it. Also you are allowed an unlimited amount of sites - I think. I prefer not to show any counter because in the past I have had problems with unsightly empty spaces when statscounter was offline. For a free service it takes some beating and has been running for a good few years now. There is a forum and so on which is helpful if you need to know anything.
 

Shovel

Can't get enough of FH
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Dec 22, 2003
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Hmm, well I remain disappointed with bbClone, but StatsCounter I'll take a look at soon.

And putting stats public on the site isn't really my thing. Hit-counters and the like died out in the last century when people realised how pointless they were :) I still have fond memories of the super-prominant Barrysworld hit counter, mind you. Hundreds of thousands wasn't it?

Whilst we're talking of public stats: It's very important that you never, ever make your referrer logs public - it's a surefire way of getting spammed/ddos'd out of existance :)
 

Maljonic

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Dec 22, 2003
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I stopped looking at stats a while ago because I had a real problem obsessing over them, I do check the webalizer stuff on the odd control panel now and again, and referers in admin areas on certain CMSs. And sometimes, very rarely now, link stats. But I was wasting so much time on it at one point that it became ridiculous, a bit like playing Runescape too much when I should have been adding more content to my sites and actually getting more visitors that way. I know they can be very useful to many people, but for someone like me they're just one more thing to think about - and I will, all the time. :)
 

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