Counter recommendation

[Cindy]

Hi all.
I'm new to FutureQuest and am using the AOTA counter for my home page. But I'm looking for a counter (adaptable cgi/perl) that would produce a report which would contain the number of visitors accessing the home page (and perhaps list the visits to all of my other pages also).

I've searched through a bunch of cgi sites but either they're too little or too much. If anybody has any recommendations to give me, I'd much appreciate it.

[Deb]

Are you finding the stats to be too much or too little in this area?

If so, what type of info are you looking for?

Deb

[Cindy]

Hi Deb,
I like the stats included with FutureQuest, but I'd like to see daily stats rather than monthly.

So I'm looking for a counter that will tell me how many visitors are coming to the site each day. (Am I right that the sessions number are visits to ALL pages? I'm still learning to analyze the stats so it's entirely possible I'm overlooking something.)

It would also be nice to see Referrer URLs by day rather than by month. I just installed the Extreme Tracking service recommended by someone in an old post in this forum and it gives me exactly the information I want, but I had to put their logo on my home page and by clicking on it, my stats are visible to everyone.

Hope this makes some sense.

[jelevin]

I also just signed up with extreme tracking and for $5 / month you can password protect your counts, not display their logo, and track a bunch of pages together or seperately. Worth it for me.

[flowersource]

Cindy,
Go take a look at the counter script at the site I recommended in my last post (today) in this forum. You can take a look at a working stats page and see if this is what you need.

I use thecounter.com (http://thecounter.com) as an addition to the futurequest stats. My counter on my website is hidden.

Mike

[kteicher]

Hi - if you want FREE but private stats I like www.superstats.com - if you are willing to spend a little money check out WStats at www.chatalogica.com - they have a version you can install on your site that is CGI, or a hosted version. Hope that helps.

[frankc]

If you want free and private stats, I just installed WebTracker on my UBBs yesterday. http://www.fxweb.com/tracker/adduser.shtml .

------------------
Frank

Hosanna! Lutheran Church www.hosannachurch.com (http://www.hosannachurch.com)

[Justin]

No more than 500 hits per day
Eek.... that stinks http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

The disadvantage I see here though is that not everyone has images turned on - these image counters are only going to count when the image loads, not necessarily when they hit your page. Also, if they hit your main page but link out of it before the browser makes a request for the image (either they have a slow modem or you have a lot of images / buttons on the main page), it won't count either.

I personally prefer the stats, as they are very detailed if you learn them. If you spend a little time just surfing through them you will see what search engines link to you, what search terms people use to find your site (very useful), exactly what page a user linked to your site from (great for finding either a) stolen / linked images, and b) sites linking to you)

Anyway, the only "downside" is that you have to learn them. They aren't simple stats at all, which makes them harder to figure out at first.

One other thing - people generally associate a WebTracker or LE counter with a cheap or free website like Geocities... considering you have full graphical stats, it's (to me anyway) like downgrading, using free services for things like counters, etc.

Just my 2 cents http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Justin

[fsiegel]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
search terms people use to find your site (very useful),
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, Justin, I give up. How do you find the search terms?

[Cindy]

Justin, I agree with your comments. The stats are very useful and informative. I just wanted a counter on the home page which would supply stats for number of visitors each day for that page only.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I tried the first suggestion of Extreme Tracking but didn't like having to display their log and to have the stats available to anyone. And then they charge you to make them private. I finally found what I was looking for at www.TheCounter.com (http://www.TheCounter.com) - they give you a configurable (or transparent) counter, private stats, stats are emailed weekly, no logo. No charge.

This won't replace the stats supplied by FutureQuest, but just gives me one piece of simple info I wanted. BTW, one of the reasons I signed up with FutureQuest WAS the stats supplied. Much information and easily accessible!

The only thing I don't like about FutureQuest are these forums - they've made me realize how little I know and it'll take me years to read the posts and understand what everyone's talking about!

[This message has been edited by Cindy (edited 04-24-99).]

[Justin]

Fsiegel:

Make sure you are in the Frames version of the stats. Click on All Referers, then click on a URL for a new window. That window will show very detailed URL's that have refered you - even the search string tacked on the end of the URL. Here's an example entry:

http://ink.yahoo.com/bin/query p=studio pro virtual studio hc=0 hs=1

This is just one particular click-through. It strips out the & and ? from the URL, but the p= is what you're looking for (on this particular engine).

---

Cindy:

You can, in your stats, click on Top URL's - this will show the top 30 files at your site. For this, you can directly go by the number of "hits", as this only counts hits to that particular file.

If the page you're looking for isn't in the top 30, just click More Details http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Oh, BTW, you scared the heck out of me with this one:

"The only thing I don't like about FutureQuest are these forums..."

My jaw almost dropped when I started reading that lol http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

---

I'm almost thinking a stats tutorial is in order...

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Cindy]

"I'm almost thinking a stats tutorial is in order..."

Justin,

Oh yes, please!

[Binky]

I'm almost thinking a stats tutorial is in order...How's that tutorial coming along?

heh heh, be careful what you say in a forum that's archived and searchable ;)[nbsp]