Stat Counter Link

[anthony_kudzin]

Hi,

I wanted to get some meaningful visitor statistics off my site and somebody mentioned 'stat counter' (also found a small thread on it here). You can register for free and then they generate a small piece of code for you to insert in your web site.

The discussion I found talks about Primary Templates etc. but I'm running 8.0.3 and I believe none of that terminology exists anymore ?

Therefore I assume the code needs to be buried in the home page somewhere, or is there a better place / way to do it ?

If anybody can suggest easy ways to get visitor stats cheaply I'd appreciate the feedback.

[pinbrook]

Doesn't your host provide stats?

[Mike Hughes]

I find statcounter quite useful as it provides up to the minute stats rather than end of day results. For just checking the number of visitors and doing a quick mental check of sales vs visitors it's very handy as a simple health check. It also shows up immediately if something is going wrong.

V8 uses 'layouts' instead of templates but the principle is still the same. Put the code in your default page layout and any others you want to see in your stats.

Mike

[jont]

Be wary of some free stat counters being available to the outside world to view your figures (very useful for competitors)

[los_design]

Pop it just ahead of your </body></html> as mentioned on pages you wish to track.

Make sure you configure it to invisible and private.

However, nearly all hosts give you access to your stats via the cp as Jo mentioned and I would tend to lean towards using my internal stats as they are not prone to 3rd party errors or misuse...

Unless you need minute by minute tracking then I would not bother with any freebies outside. IMHO

[Mike Hughes]

The good thing about statcounter is that your stats are only visible to you. they're a proper external stats service just like google but offer a free service with limited ability to dig down into the details (you need to pay if you want details in depth).

The others are right about server stats. Your web host should offer these and I personally find a combination of statcounter for the immediate stats and quick health check and an external stats package for the details work best for me.

Of course, google now offer a full service for free, but whether you want google to have all that information about your website is another question.

Mike

[anthony_kudzin]

Many thanks for all your feedback. My site host does provide a free web analysis service, but from when I went through the Stat counter site their results looked easier to manage/track/analyse, that was all.