What Stats Service Do You Use?

March 8th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

Reinvigorate

At work I’m a stats whore. In fact my background is in maths. Although I left University with an Economics degree, I actually got my place on a maths course although I changed within weeks when I worked out that I wasn’t nerdy enough to study maths at degree level!

When I had more time to devote to my blogging stats I used to pour over them nearly everyday. But, now that I have to be more disciplined about my daily blogging time I now use Google Analytics, because it gives me a good quick snapshot that seems accurate.

However drilling down to find the detail with Google Analytics can be hard as it only lists the top 5 referrals etc. Ajay’s been raving about Reinvigorate (pictured), which is still in beta. I’ve applied for a beta account, but in the interim I’ve reinstalled Mint. I removed Mint when my old server was struggling, but hopefully now on the new server everything will be ok.

Update: I’ve temporarily made access to Mint public if you want to see what it can do out of the box. There are many other plugins, but I haven’t got around to adding them yet.  The numbers for yesterday are only for a few hours and my server went down for a bit.

While I’m waiting for my reinvigorate details, I just wanted to find out how everyone else is getting their stats. What stats service or app do you use and why?

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About the Author

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Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

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There Are 29 Responses So Far. »

  1. #1

    Comment by knupNET on 8 March 2007:

    Everton,

    I just use the combination of Google Analytics and Awstats on my server. I know - pretty basic stuff - but that’s what I use. I am going to check out Reinvigorate now though I think.

    Later!

  2. #2

    Comment by Zath on 8 March 2007:

    I also use a combination of Google Analytics and Awstats, which for my immediate needs I feel are quite good. Google Analytics certainly was a good upgrade for me from Awstats except for that Top 5 thing, which is rather annoying, I hope that gets changed in future.

  3. #3

    Comment by Ajay on 8 March 2007:

    I got Analytics and Statcounter. But, like I told you over IM, Reinvigorate looks really good so far. The beta is free. If they turn paid, I may not continue. But, lets see.

  4. #4

    Comment by Everton on 8 March 2007:

    I’ve temporarily made access to Mint public if you want to see what it can do out of the box. There are many other plugins, but I haven’t got around to adding them yet. The numbers for yesterday are only for a few hours and my server went down for a bit.

  5. #5

    Comment by Ajay on 8 March 2007:

    Looks goodm but I dont want to buy yet another plugin that may eat up my server.

  6. #6

    Comment by Everton on 8 March 2007:

    it’s not a plugin-it’s a standalone program. it’s no different to adding Analytics code to your server. I removed it before as it couldn’t keep up when my site got ultra-busy

  7. #7

    Comment by Ajay on 8 March 2007:

    But, is it working well now? You definitely have a lot more traffic today than you did a month back, except when you got on digg.

  8. #8

    Comment by hongkiat on 8 March 2007:

    I’ve been using a lot of other sites tracking appli, but prefer Google Analytics. It gives you very precise infomation but lack of visibility. Detail stats were hidden under navigations In the end, I believe its still somehow related to how google ’sees’ your website.

    Reinvigorate and Mint sure looks cool. Have applied and see if I can get an invitation to Reinvigorate.

  9. #9

    Comment by IndoDX on 8 March 2007:

    I use WP-Shortstat and for me this really good enough for free version stats

  10. #10

    Comment by Everton on 8 March 2007:

    But, is it working well now? You definitely have a lot more traffic today than you did a month back, except when you got on digg.

    The new version of Mint doesn’t even seem to be creating any additional server load. I don’t think that mint was the problem before though - I think the other problems on my server were affecting mint.

  11. #11

    Comment by Ajay on 8 March 2007:

    Possible… well… I’m going to stick with Invigorate for a while. Will review them when I get the chance.

  12. #12

    Comment by Charlie on 8 March 2007:

    How about basil? Have you tried it? It seems a step up from mint and looks like it can handle a bit of traffic. It might be too simple for some but I like not having to dig through 10 layers of navigation to find out the basic facts.

  13. #13

    Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 8 March 2007:

    No, No, Not another good analytics program!! How many javascript calls can I put in our footer before Jennifer hits me over the head with something?

    Here’s a wrap-up of the analytics tools we use - and what we use each one for. They all have their own distinct purpose…

    Yes, this may be overkill for most folks, but each tool has it’s own strengths. We don’t compare them to each other as they all drop packets (you’ll make yourself go nuts that way), but for long term tracking we always check Google Analytics - that way the deviation from real traffic is consistent, and it’s the trends that are so critical.

    1. Google Analytics (awesome tool for aggregate metrics, great for tracking reader activity, traffic sources, traffic conversions, etc),

    2. StatCounter (best for real-time daily stats checking - ideally we don’t do too much of that),

    3. MyBlogLog (shows you which of your own links were clicked and how often - very powerful) - not to mention the SOOO powerful networking side effect

    4. and as of recently http://www.103bees.com (good representation of keywords, phrases, and questions leading people to your site)

    5. AWStats comes with our web hosting account so we do use it somewhat - but I’m not too fond of this or the other host-based tools. They’re focused mostly on file hits and stuff, not “marketer metrics”, which is what you’ll really want to focus on. BUT it does show you cool stuff like search engine bot hits and direct referrals from each search engine in a nice format.

    6. and of course Feedburner RSS stats

    We (ok, really Jennifer - being the organized, read: grounded person that she is), consolidate our stats weekly to know where we are compared to previous weeks, determine what worked best and what didn’t and figure out how to approach the following week.

    Same for our AdSense and all affiliate performance metrics for the week, so we know what to try the next week to “beat the control”.

    We’re still trying to figure out how to increase our page views per visitor beyond what it is now… after all with 2k visitors a day, there’s a huge potential difference in monetization when you consider 2 hits/visitor vs. 6 hits per visitor.

    Added “related posts” at the bottom of each post, also all the plugins to increase comments help. But we’re still hovering around 2.x pages per visitor.

    * Do you guys have any ideas on what we could try there that we’re not already doing? *

    Have an awesome day!
    Dan

  14. #14

    Comment by Everton on 8 March 2007:

    lol and I thought I was a stats monkey!

    Some good stuff has come up in the pimps in the forum on driving traffic. This post might have a few ideas to try

  15. #15

    Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 8 March 2007:

    Wow, this is great, Thanks! I’ve been looking for a list like this for a while.

    Well put: “Wordpress engagement plugins”. I’ve just got to try a couple of these, like the search engine landing recommendations, or the “posts other readers just visited” one.

    Ok, this list is definitely going on my Dream Catcher to possibly attack this weekend.

    ***
    FYI, a bit off topic here, but that Dream Catcher concept is part of Simpleology, the most effective system for getting organized and getting things actually DONE that I’ve ever tried, and it was free too.

    I’m an idea guy - dozens upon dozens a day - Jennifer has the ability to actually get things DONE. but since we both started using Simpleology a year ago, I’m 5 times as effective as I’ve ever been.

    Our friend Edward Mills at EvolvingTimes.com has a great writeup on it if anyone’s interested. Check out our comment below his post for our full experiences with it:
    http://evolvingtimes.com/2006/12/30-day-trial-for-simpleology-and-a-new-email-system.htm

    Have an awesome day!
    Dan

  16. #16

    Comment by Everton on 8 March 2007:

    you’ll be surprised what great stuff is buried away on my blog. I wish I could find a way to highlight more of my old post.

    Before you install Landing sites you may want to read this - I feel out of love with it

  17. #17

    Comment by Thilak on 9 March 2007:

    I share the same feeling with Google Analytics. I tried Mint, but it was causing excessive Resource Hog. I’ll try Ajay recommendation

  18. #18

    Comment by Mark from Bloglyne.com on 9 March 2007:

    I am using Analytics and GoDaddy’s Site Tracker - between the two they seem to give me all the important data.

  19. #19

    Comment by Zigire on 14 March 2007:

    Am I missing something?

    Google Analytics shows more than 5 referrals… under ‘All Reports’ go to Visitor Segment Performance and then choose Referring Source… you can see up to 500 there!

  20. #20

    Comment by Zigire on 14 March 2007:

    err.. “Visitor Segment Performance” is under Marketing Optimization

    so : All Reports : Marketing Optimization: All Reports: Visitor Segment Performance: Referring Source

  21. #21

    Comment by Everton on 14 March 2007:

    lol I’d never seen that filter at the top before. Still too fiddly for my liking

  22. #22

    Comment by Adrian on 25 March 2007:

    I’ve just bought a copy of basil my self and am quite impressed with the elegant design and the no nosense reports it produces from my stats. It was a tough call for me over which stats app to buy or choose with there being so many, but i am very happy with my choice.

    After i bought it i had a few question and the support from these guys was great with response in little under two hours.

    Although there is no ajax support it is a feature they look to be adding for an up and coming release. The roadmap for basil seems fast paced and if the turnover of features is as quick as their response time for support then this app is sure to be a diamond in the rough… …an absolute must have.

    In basil we trust!!! ;-)

  23. #23

    Comment by Stephen Hopson on 10 October 2007:

    Okay guys. I’m a new user of WP after having moved from Blogger to my own domain, using a WP theme.

    Question: How and where do I put the Google Analytics code?

    And as for the Google plug-ins, which one is compatible with WP Version 2.3? I saw on the list of compatible plug=ins soemthing called Google Analyaticator. Did anyone like it? If something is wrong with it, and I remove the plug in, will it also remove any codes that it put on the different pages of my blog? I would be concerned about whether the deleting of this kind of plug in would leave behind bits and pieces of coding on different pages.

    Any advice?

    Stephen

  24. #24

    Comment by Everton on 10 October 2007:

    Stephen - put the code just before < /body > in footer.php

  25. #25

    Comment by Stephen Hopson on 10 October 2007:

    Everton:

    Thanks! I put the Google Analytics code just before the in the footer.php and it’s now collecting data. We shall see how this goes.

    Just one other question that wasn’t answered in my post. I’m just curious to see what you have to say about Google Analyaticator. Is it better to use the plug in or just use the Google Analytics code? And if one were to use the plug-in, if he/she decided to deactivate and/or delete the plug-in, does that mean all the coding will automatically be deleted for Google Analaytics?

    Stephen

  26. #26

    Comment by Everton on 10 October 2007:

    google anlyticator sounds like a classic poor excuse for a plugin…it took you 10 secs to insert the code, and you can get all the stats from the google site, so why burden your site with yet another plugin?

  27. #27

    Comment by Stephen Hopson on 10 October 2007:

    Everton:

    While I understand your comment about the plug-in, there are some people who might be intidimated about the idea of inserting the coding in the footer.php for fear of messing up. There are people who are brand new at this sort of stuff and a plug-in might help them breathe a little easier. Fortunately I knew how to put the code in but my comment above was more of curiosity, wondering if the plug-in had features that the Google Analytics program did not have. That’s what I was curious about.

    Have a great day!

    stephen

  28. #28

    Comment by Everton on 10 October 2007:

    adding code is no harder than using FTP to load a plugin in my view, which is alien to just as many people.

  29. #29

    Comment by Stephen Hopson on 10 October 2007:

    Everton:

    Good point! Uploading via FTP is definitely alien to a lot of people out there. I hadn’t thought of that.

    Stephen

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