I hadn't thought much about the little sitemeter tag that's been at the bottom of my blog for the past 6 months until I was playing with it this morning. My surge of posting in past few days made me curious whether increased activity led to increased viewership. For those not familiar with sitemeter, you create an account and then submit your blog/website to be monitored for traffic with the option of having reports sent to you on a regular basis. You even get the html code for sticking a little logo tab somewhere on your page.
Since my report is scheduled for Monday morning, I received mine today - thus creating the aforementioned curiosity. I started to look at some of the more obscure facts which are available and was simultaneously amazed and slightly disturbed. With this account, I am literally able to determine the geographic location, network, operating system, browser type and even the resolution of the monitor being used by a visitor to my site. I know how they found my site, what content on my blog was viewed and how long they were they were there. Truely interesting and scarey. I felt like a character from "Hackers"! I highly recommend you check this out if you care at all who and how many visitors are viewing your page.
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Hi Matt. We use statcounter and have found that the results are not usually accurate. Mainly when displaying the region of the visitor. It usually shows my own visits from Connecticut. And my parents up in Michigan from Gig Harbor, Washington. It makes it difficult to see who is actually visiting.
ReplyDeleteDid Sarah have a good trip to MI? I was bummed that we were so close but I was going to miss seeing her and meeting Campbell.
Yeah, I imagine that it isn't always accurate, but thus far I have found it to be pretty good. I was actually just looking at it while you were reading this post and it showed that a person from South Bend had chosen to make a comment. I was waiting to see who it was (my uncle lives in South Bend) and was glad to see your comment.
ReplyDeleteSarah comes back tomorrow morning but I think her trip has been really good. She seems to have had a great time.
ok. I'm switching. Do I need to actually install sitemeter or does it do it itself when I sign up? I hope I don't find anything that freaks me out.
ReplyDeleteI think all you have to do is set up an account and then it will prompt you to enter the address for your site. They will give you the code to add the sitemeter logo to your site, but I don't think that step is necessary for the meter to function. I set it up a while ago so don't exactly recall the steps involved.
ReplyDeleteHey, if you get a comment from someone in Flippinawesomeville, USA, it's just me.
ReplyDeleteActually, I have quite a following in Flippinawesomeville, bu tit never hurts to have one more fan in that part of the country.
ReplyDeleteumm....I apologize for the misplaced space in the previous post that creates a slightly embarrassing typo.
ReplyDeleteSo I installed it. But it still lists my visits as Connecticut. Oh well. At least I learned how to spell "Connecticut."
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah! :)
I just realized that you are the one always checking in from Connecticut (I'll have to trust you that yours is the correct spelling). Oh well, it's still kind of fun to see what aspect of your blog gets regular hits.
ReplyDeleteSarah made it home so I'm off to see her now. I'll tell her you say hi.