It’s kind of a mixed bag when you look at all your great weather sites - some have counters, some don’t. Thought I’d ask what peoples thoughts are about using one. I have one but have been thinking about turning it off!
With my updated hosting package, I now have access to usage statistics available to me…seems like, for the month of August, wxd.weather-watch.com is responsible for 60% of the referrals to my site…ie hits
Trying to better understand this, is this all of you guys checking in to my site during the month to see what the weather is like in Rock Hall, MD or is their something in WD, WDL or Mesomap that’s pulsing my site about 35 times a day from wxd.weather-watch.com?
I have a counter on my site but its invisable. Its more for does anybody look at the site?? if so which pages. Also its useful when you build pages to know what screen size is used which still seems to be 1024 x 768. so the pages when built tend to take this into account so there is no scolling left to right. IE is also the most used browser still…followed by Firefox Safari etc.
The other way to check iif you have your own web server is to use the webserver log this shows a whole mine of information that is not reported on the counter for example who is using your clientraw.txt or when Yahoos spider “Slurp” last looked at your site or for me just recently russian sites looking for keys for software!!
Looking at your post you have no banner or avatar linked back to your site as this would increase your hits even more.
My new hosting page offers a statistics package that is far more informative than just a plain counter…I’m thinking I can learn everything from it and take the counter off my home page.
I get stats reports as well from GoDaddy so no need for a hit counter on the site. I highly doubt my site is of any particular interest to anyone but me so why bother?
You might be surprised Lulu. I used to think the same, but I now on average have 60-100 page hits per day. Spikes much higher if anything of note is going on weather wise.
I use three methods to get stats.
I have an (invisible) web-stat.com counter (since it’s the only way to get browser screen size data).
I use the built-in stats from my webhoster (1 and 1), and I also use the (invisible) PHP Counter stats package on my PHP pages, and I download the weekly Apache logs for any additional processing that may be needed.
I find having diverse sources for the stats (JavaScript on the page, built-in PHPCounter, and Apache logs/analysis) allows for more robust data analysis (and really helps when diagnostics are needed).
I think all counter functions should be invisible to the viewer of the website … having a visible counter is like having a rotating .gif for email contact… very 90’s
To each his own…I like having my counter visable…I like being able to see the locations of my visitors…and I like having the daily count of visitors…guess I’m just a 90’s kind of guy #-o
I use StatCounter and have been very surprised by the info - I use the option Visitor Paths and that shows me at a glance the most recent visitors, their ISP, their location (well of the ISP gateway) the number of hits they have made totally using that IP address and what link they have used - if there is no link then it is either manually typed in directly or used as a favorite or they have a Refresh (which is built into the WD html header) but have used a favorite or link to get ther first. One or two ISP’s are company only ie CanWest which in NZ is a private TV Stn network and a series of FM networks, that one gets me every weekday morning between 4:10am and 4:40am, regular as clockwork, Mon to Fri;
Another hits me about 4 times a day with over 170 repeats and on more than 1 IP address too so there is a double up of hits… and I believe that is either a TV stn or an internet city network hub website which provide local weather reports on the website.
Apart from that I get hits from links on here from my banner and various forum topics from here. Plus I get hit with Google searches - I am in top 4 for anything with Tokoroa plus a weather element and often first… and on second page for just “Tokoroa” (Where’s Tokoroa HAHA! :lol: )
In NZ there is also a weather station listing on a private website that is used as an index for all stations - and the forecasting networks use it a lot. Most of the hiuts are through that list.
Me to, Stat counter.com are great… many different counters including invisible and its FREE (limited log size though) and regular email reports of stats.
I get a few regular visitors nothing major, but its great to see where they came from, how long they stayed… and loads more !!
Have you looked at Google Analytics? It’s free and very detailed. Has screen resolution, browser type, country, state, city stats. It’s really good. I just started using it about a month ago.
wxd.weather-watch.com is either the MML system picking up your clientraw.txt file approx every 15 minutes or people looking at your site from within the MML Management Centre. I suspect the former will generate more hits than the latter.
(limited log size though) and regular email reports of stats.