StatCounter.Com can produce far different results to standard log file analysis. This is not surprising as our system is designed to track browsers NOT server requests. This can result in a significantly lower count than standard log file analysis. But it offers a more realistic figure of the visitors to your website and far more detail and it is provided in real-time! So how do they differ? A big factor is the placement of the StatCounter tracking code. You can use StatCounter to only track the pages you want by simply placing it on the pages you want to track. Log file analysis will track all server requests by default. If you have very large, slow loading pages it is recommended to place the tracking code closer to the top of the page instead of the bottom. Or a visitor may exit your page before the page finishes loading and the tracking script will never have been loaded. Framed websites can cause a big problem for log file analysis resulting in an over-inflated count. When a visitor visits a singe page that could often be recorded as 3 visits - loading the main frame, a side frame and a footer. StatCounter does not have this problem. Cached pages are another huge problem for log file analysis this time resulting in a very poor undercount of visitors. Often your own local ISP will keep a cache of many websites you visit regularly. This speeds up your use of the web - unfortunately no server request is made to your website when this happens. And your visit will go uncounted. This does not happen with StatCounter with the use of javascript and a random variable each time. Web Proxies - many users, most noticeably AOL users access the web through a web proxy. Their ip address can change on each request to your website so log file analysis could not accurately count your unique visitors. StatCounter does both - we use a simple cookie and the user's ip address. Robots - the requests made to your website by robots will be recorded in your log files but it will not be recorded by StatCounter. Overall StatCounter provides a far more detailed, accurate count and tracking of behavior of the 'real' visitors to your website than standard log file analysis.
This is very useful in the keyword stats. With the StatCounter code you can insert it on every page of your website. Of course you don't just get visitors coming into your website from just the homepage. They can find your website from any page. The landing page column in the keyword stats shows this nicely - it will show the keyword they typed in the search engine as well as the page they 'landed on' when they visited your website first.
You can have your stats recorded in whatever timezone you like! To change the timezone your stats are being recorded in simply follow these steps. 1. Login to your account 2. Click the installation and configuration icon beside your project name 3. Click the 'edit settings' link 4. Chooze your timezone from the drop down list. Note: We only list the timezones that are relevant for the country you have listed in your profile. If you want to use a timezone from another country you will have to update your profile to use that country.
We currently allow you to export your summary stats as an excel or csv file. We are working hard to make the rest of the stats exportable as well asap.
This is a very interesting statistics! This means someone has found your website extremely useful - and they have downloaded one of your webpages with the StatCounter code as well - the clever StatCounter code however tracks this when it is loaded on their computer then and you can find out a little information about the people downloading your web pages.
No referring link means they typed your address in directly into the address bar. Or they had your website bookmarked.
The unique visitors and returning visitors is based entirely on cookies. If a person's browser has cookies disabled they will always be counted as a unique visitor. If they delete their cookie and visit your site again they will be counted as a unique visitor and not a returning visitor. It can never be an exact science with determining the exact number of unique visitors but it does give a very good idea, and you can easily spot trends over time from this information.
We are still developing the keyword stats to its full potential, we work with most search engines at the moment. But there are some search engines which we don't include the keyword analysis at the moment.
1. Simply login to your account 2. Click the real time stats icon (bar chart icon) beside your project name. 3. Click the visitors or path link from the left menu.
There are a number of days either at the beginning or at the end of the year that are not part of the "normal" 52 weeks of the year. PHP and/or MYSQL treats weeks as being not just any 7-day period, but specific periods from Mondays to Sundays. This can leave some "stray" days if a year starts or ends in the middle of a week. For example, in 2005, the year started on a Saturday. PHP/MYSQL does not treat the two days of Saturday and Sunday as the first week of the year, rather "Week 53".
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