September 7, 2008

If you're a SiteMeter junkie like I am...

You'll be interested to know that SiteMeter -- yes, it's SiteMeter, not Site Meter or Sitemeter -- is shifting to a new platform next weekend.
Following the Migration all Premium Accounts will only pay one flat fee of $6.95 a month or $59.00 a year. This applies to new signups and current paid accounts going forward.
This is great news. The current fee structure was based on traffic levels, and I've been paying about $30 a month and expecting to see an increase with recent (election-based) rise traffic. I love the expanded statistics I get with the premium account, especially this page, which shows the websites readers are coming from. I also like -- and sometimes screen-capture and blog about -- this page, which shows the search terms that bring people here. There are always funny things. The terms are listed in alphabetical order, and there's always something in the section beginning with the word "why" that cracks me up.

For example, right now, there's "why does my dog seem mean when im high." I can click on it and get to the search page and see what post of mine was found and where my post ranked in the search. This page of mine came up on the first page of the poignant search that had some poor soul wondering, perhaps, whether his drug use was distorting his perception of the dog or whether the dog was pissed at him for getting high or -- why not? -- whether the drugs are enhancing his perceptions and the dog actually is mean. Of course, my blog post -- about Barack Obama's statement of belief that he has "the right temperament for the presidency" -- is not going to answer the question. There's nothing in the post about drugs: Obama uses the word "high" to refer to feelings of elation. And there's nothing in the post about dogs -- except one commenter's "Temperament. That's a quality dog breeders emphasize."

At one point, I decided I was paying too much for this information and downgraded to the free basic service, but within a few days I was back. I am hooked on the stuff. (Why does my dog seem mean when I smoke too much SiteMeter?) Suffice it to say, I'm happy with the new low price.
Visit Counts will likely be higher

We have now added the ability to track visits using cookies, this allows SiteMeter to distinguish unique visitors far more accurately than on the old (current) platform. For example, in an office building with internet users sitting behind one IP address the old (current) platform would maybe be able to detect unique visitors about half the time. Using the cookie system it’s nearly 100% accurate.
More traffic. Cool.
For those using our Free service with large volumes of visit traffic your visit counts may be lower. Our new platform offers unlimited capacity on visit records which no longer affects visit counts. (for more information on this see http://weblog.sitemeter.com/2007/10/05/sitemeter-visit-tracking-explained/)
Huh? So my traffic would have been higher under the free service? I don't like seeing that, but it only relates to the past. As for the future, it will be interesting to see the reshuffling of traffic statistic as some blogs will see a boost in their numbers and others a reduction.

So that's the SiteMeter news.

19 comments:

chickelit said...

I'm curious to see your traffic as a function topics, say political ones Palin, McCain, Hillary. Is there a strait correlation between unique hits and comment numbers?

Will you tailor posts (even slightly) to drive traffic? This is, of course, your privilege, but unpopular "tags" would diminish.

Alex said...

Keep up the Palin smear campaign, guaranteed hits!

Zachary Sire said...

Wonderful news! I am addicted to sitemeter. And I was proud to see my blog had pointed <1% of traffic to your site (hey at least it's something!). What I would love is if they had a "unique hits" stat count, meaning it would only count someone's visit to your page once per day, even if they come back 10x per day. No need to count someone's visit more than once...I only want to know how many new readers I'm getting per day.

Jim Hu said...

Why pay for this info when Google Analytics is free? Especially since blogger is already part of the Google empire.

vbspurs said...

Good news!

Like ZPS and Benning, my site also saw a startling upsurge -- from 500-800 hits per day to 8,000 hits per day as people Googled "Sarah Palin" obsessively. My record of almost 20,000 hits on Friday made even me proud (I'm delighted with extra traffic, but I'm not a consistent blogger).

I also use Shiny Stats, an Italian-based stats counter which oddly is more thorough than Site Metre at times. Not too sure why.

Oh BTW, I think I found a woman writer even more annoying than Dowd.

Jessica Reaves of the Chicago-Trib. Here's her takedown of the Palin nomination.

Talking about why she was nominated ahead of Pawlenty:

Because Palin's a woman. And because Rove, currently serving as an "informal adviser" to McCain's campaign, once read a book about women that convinced him the only thing women love more than a good white sale is casting a vote for another woman. (OK, I just made that up. I have no idea whether Karl Rove has ever read a book).

I think I wrote like this in 9th grade. And sometimes when I am lazy, spitting out a post on my blog.

If this writing and, worse yet, her logic reflects her talent as a journalist, I feel sorry to call her part of the Sisterhood of the Travelling White Sales.

Cheers,
Victoria

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

For those using our Free service with large volumes of visit traffic your visit counts may be lower. Our new platform offers unlimited capacity on visit records which no longer affects visit counts.

Just when you thought Hillary health care was dead ... ;)

Ann Althouse said...

"Why pay for this info when Google Analytics is free?"

I never go to Google Analytics anymore. I just don't like the way the information looks. It's more geared toward commercial enterprises (not that I don't care about the income I get from the blog). SiteMeter just meshes well with the substance of blog writing. And SiteMeter is free too at the basic level. I just love the premium level.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

This is just a theory.

The better the blogger tags the closer the law of averages will reward that blogger.

If the tags bear no relevance, then I will need a little more time to come up with something ;)

Coining an internet law (like Godwin's law) is not for amateurs like myself.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

.. just meshes well with the substance of blog writing.

Thats it. Even if volume is not high... if the content is high.. they will come.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Goggle relies on superficial popularity metrics, not on searches based on content and relevance.

http://www.cuil.com/info/

Goggle couldn't care less about the substance of the content.

blake said...

Huh? So my traffic would have been higher under the free service? I don't like seeing that, but it only relates to the past.

Well, no, it just would've been less accurately reflected on the free service.

I like SiteMeter (and StatCounter) as well but if you're going free, Google doesn't cut you off after 500 visits.

Ron said...

So, for you, it's more SiteMirror than SiteMeter? (all us commenters...just crows feet in your SiteMirror...)

AllenS said...

I feel like, well, a statistic.

AllenS said...

I've even got a number: 15,581,713.

rhhardin said...

My own blog is site-meter free. I assume nobody reads it. I know I don't.

Chris said...

So, do you teach the Slaughterhouse Cases, or the Slaughter-House Cases?

Jim Hu said...

I admit that I'm mostly like rhardin - I assume that almost no one reads my blog, so I don't visit Google Analytics that often for blogging either. I use Analytics for my work related sites, though.

Meade said...

"(Why does my dog seem mean when I smoke too much SiteMeter?)"

Because zat eez nyet yr doog.

(It probably belongs to RHHardin.)

Ruth Anne Adams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.