My own lack of geek genes becomes apparent...

[ht_murray]

This isn't fandom related. Just something I'm wondering that's probably completely pointless to post on a Saturday night right before I leave for work, but I'm going to do it anyway.

With regard to statcounters and pingbacks.

Firstly, I don't think LJ has worked the kinks out of their pingback feature yet. On my last two big posts I posted them privately in my journal while I worked on them and then made a current post linking back to them so the dates would be accurate for future reference. I know that's anal, but whatever. Anyway, I got pingback notifications for the links I posted in my own journal to links further down in my own journal. I found that amusing. But on both those entries, I have found (by browsing comms and other journals) that those posts have been linked back to many times and I have only received a notification for one. The posts I found where I was linked were at least public enough for me to read, so I don't think it's an issue of them being linked in a locked post or anything. Anyone care to venture what's up with that? Just an LJ glitch?

And statcounters.

I have a few. The most obvious one is the sitemeter in my sidebar, which y'all can't see without going to my actual journal page since I have custom comment pages disabled. Here's the thing. Every week I get a little update on that. And the numbers are downright puny.

For example, it said, on the day I posted that fic, that I had 72 hits to my whole journal. o_O I also have an invisible counter on certain entries. The invisible counter said I had over 1600 hits that day, just to those two entries. Mostly to the one, but a few to the other.

Here's what I think the issue is. I think when I set up the sitemeter, I set it up to record only new or unique hits. I did that because I know most of the hits on my journal on days when I'm not posting fic are me. I don't mind it counting me once, but I don't want to be counted twenty times in one day. I think I assumed, (wrongly) that it would record unique hits within a certain time frame, like within 24 hours or so. I now believe it is only recording unique hits altogether. So, once you've been to my journal for anything, you're counted and will never be counted again.

Could that be the case? I just cannot figure out any other reason why I get so few hits on my sitemeter.

On the one hand, it looks bad, lol, in case people actually look at that and compare.

On the other, I get 38 unique hits a day on average. And over 14000 unique computers have visited my LJ.

So, um, my question is, what statcounters do y'all use, and which do you find the most helpful?

That is all. Going to work now.

Comments

[tigriswolf]

I... have no idea what you're talking about.

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

LOL, just a way to find out how many people are reading and what they're reading when they visit my journal.

[starry-ice.livejournal.com]

For basic tracking of unique hits, it's usually IP-based so it's only looking for new IP numbers. Unless a lot of your visitors use dial up or have cable/DSL that rotates IPs, it's not going to log them returning later. I don't know if there's a tracker out there that tracks and times out IP records every 24 hours. Sometimes, they could do a cookie-based tracking method, so you're looking at unique machines/browsers rather than just the internet connection. The number of times a machine can be logged as a unique hit will depend on when the cookie is set to expire.

And then I think the mother of all trackers out there is Google Analytics. It's geared towards collecting data to target ads, so it does a lot more than just track visitors. My understanding is they store something in a computer's registry and tracks user behaviour based on that machine identifier. It's actually kind of sketch, because they can truly log everything you do on your machine online as long as the sites you're on use the GA tracker...

Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions for statcounters. One of my old sites has the freetracker from http://extremetracking.com/ and a custom php code one off the webserver. I don't know if there are better ones out there now; that site of mine is from like 9 years ago...

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured that's what must be happening. I haven't tried that other tracker, but I will have to look. I dunno about a php code since I don't have server space anywhere. Well, I did register for some once upon a time but could never figure out how to use it. LOL.

[angels3.livejournal.com]

You know me I don't have a clue. I thought I had mine set up for the pingy thing but I've never gotten an alert. Maybe I'm just not loved *grins*

As for the statcounters I just figured they were more trouble than they were worth for my poor untechnological brain. :)

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

It's funny. I wrote and posted probably three fics in this fandom before I knew ff.net had a stats function. One of my friends said she didn't judge her fic by reviews, just by hits, and I was like, "Well, how do you know how many hits you have?" LOL. I so should never have done that, because now I overanalyze everything. But I am always curious about how many people are reading as opposed to leaving feedback.

I also like LJ-toys, because it also tells you the usernames of the hits if it can figure them out. But I know a lot of people are squicked out by the fact that it exists, so I only put the code in certain entries. (You'd be surprised the people who read your journal and wouldn't give you the time of day outside of it.) But it's not entirely accurate. I can look at the IPs and have five different IPs all credited with the same username. So, yeah...

And don't worry about not getting any pings. Like I said, they're not working very well. I also kinda wonder why I don't get pings every time I crosspost in a community. *ponders*

[angels3.livejournal.com]

What's LJ-toys? I don't know about it.

I know how to check my stats on FF and it is interesting and it would be cool to know here but unless they can figure out a way where I don't have to set it up then I probably won't ever figure it out.

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

http://ljtoys.org

I don't know if that link will work, but you should be able to google it at least. I didn't set up the whole icon set like they suggest. Wayyyyy too complicated. I just take the little code they give you for individual bugs and paste it into posts that I want to monitor. It gives a pretty cool feedback including usernames, though they'll tell you right out that the usernames are a guess and not necessarily accurate.

Yeah, copy the link and paste it into a google search.

[almightyspaz.livejournal.com]

*eyes go wide in confusion*. I is so lost that I can't find my way out. Sorry that I can't help. *grins sheepishly and runs away*

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

LOL, don't mind me, sometimes I just get obsessed with the details. But if you're really interested, feel free to check out the rest of the comments on this entry.

[i-o-r-h-a-e-l.livejournal.com]

I use ritecounter.com and so far so good. It's free but quite detailed. :)

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I checked that one out. It looks similar to sitemeter. I might get one as a backup. Thanks.

[kynikey.livejournal.com]

Why didn't you just set up the "ignore my own visits" option on sitemeter? Then it'd count everyone but you visiting your site, and since it divides between visits and users, you can see exactly how many different people there were and who came back 20 times.

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Yes, I figured it was possible to go back and change the settings, but I dont' remember my login information anymore. LOL.

Besides, now that I know it's tracking only unique IPs, I'm kinda fascinated by where these 38 new people a day are coming from. I wonder what the heck I'm doing to lure them in, especially since most of them seem to be going directly to my journal and not to any particular page. *is thinky*

[apieceofcake.livejournal.com]

I can't figure those things out..LOL! I did have a counter in my sidebar, but then forgot and deleted it when I changed layouts. As for pingback, don't get that either..LOL! *is dense*

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, you should be able to get your sitemeter back up and running by going to the site and logging in. You should be able to get the code back.

Pingbacks are supposed to send you a little notice every time someone links to one of your posts. It's helpful for finding out if you're recced or being wanked about somewhere, LOL. But like I said, they're not really working right at all.

[unplugged32.livejournal.com]

I don't understand any of that, but I'm so impressed that you do!!

xoxoxoxoxoxo

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Well, I understand my understanding of things, but that's not saying much. LOL.