Statistically Silly – What to Trust?

Source: 椎香貞正 from pixiv

It is nice to get some recognition for the work that you do and blogging is no different. Even though the blog has barely been up twelve days, things have never been better. I’ve been able to write with consistency and everything is falling into place nicely. I’ve got writers in place (a big warm welcome to 2Shea by the way, a new addition to our writing cast XD), the design seems to be solid aesthetically and there has been a healthy amount of discussion and comments thrown around in every post (and for this in particular, I thank all you readers for keeping up with my excessively nagging writing. I know it’s a struggle ). I’ve love everything about this venture so far and I’m really glad that there are readers who are coming back for more.

Although I’m not really into statistics and the like (I’ve never been a fan of numbers and math), I’m not afraid to admit that it’s a little fun seeing the blog numbers go up and up on any given day. It pains me to see when I see the visitor count get very close to the all-time high, only for the day to end and a new count begins in it’s place. I’m sure a lot of you have had memories doing the exact same thing and it was always a favourite past time of mine on HNYZ.

That said though, I have always wondered about the validity of the various types of stat trackers blogs have to offer. Sekijitsu in particular has three different trackers running at the same time. This may seem excessive (although it clearly fits my personality for anyone who knows me) but I’ve been very intrigued (actually, confused) with the numbers that they have been giving me. Each of the three trackers seem to give very different feedback for the visitor numbers of the blog. Some have it excessively high, while some seem to be more realistic, especially considering that the blog is still growing.

Before anyone asks, I’d just like to say that the blog is currently powered by WordPress. After looking at the other options out there, I thought wordpress seemed to be very user-friendly and I loved the clean interface it offers. With that out of the way, the trackers that I’ve been using on the blog are Statpress Reloaded, kStats and Google Analytics. Anyone with half a brain would say that google is the way to go, since the whole brand exudes confidence and reliability especially in the internet field. Even I seem to lean towards Analytics more, since it is the more realistic of the three at generating tracking numbers. Regardless though, I created this post in order to gain an understanding of what other bloggers out there use for their stat tracking. In my previous blog, I relied on the combo of Statpress and Sitemeter, and at the time, the two seem to be in sync in the numbers they generate so it didn’t cause any confusion. Now however, with the inclusion of Google, everything falls haywire as I’m not really sure who to trust anymore.

I’ll give you a few examples of some of the numbers I’ve been getting today (a decidedly slow day given that they weren’t any new posts):

On kSTATs, I’ve been getting 41 visitors and 355 pageviews

On Statpress, it’s 110 visitors and 619 pageviews

On Analytics, it’s 39 visitors and 165 pageviews

These are all numbers from the same day and you can clearly see the difference in every reading. How is a guy not suppose to get confused with this? At first glance, Statpress seems to be very bloated in the numbers and even the most optimistic of bloggers would not expect to see such crazy numbers like this 12 days after launch. Hell, it took my previous blog a few months to generate 100+ visitors daily on a consistent basis. I probably should disable this plugin but given how reliable it was in the past, I find it odd to see that it just suddenly became broken a few months after I last used it at HNYZ (especially since it’s gained quite a following and is pretty popular from what I can tell). For now, I’m gonna keep it on for a little while longer to see if it mellows down a bit, as I suspect that the broken readings may be due to some unchanged settings from the past. If it doesn’t change soon, it’s hasta la vista Statpress.

kSTATs had believable numbers and I really liked how simple and clean the interface was. I only turned it on recently so I haven’t been getting much numbers to compare it with the others, but on the few days of operation, it’s been fairly believable. Thing is, it doesn’t have much depth in the data it produces, as it doesn’t show statistics like top browsers, OS etc. Statpress shows this but given the crazy readings it’s been getting, I’m not even gonna entertain the stats it’s produced on other things.

The most in-depth of the lot, Analytics, should be the tracker I should keep my eye on and I have been since I’ve activated it. It’s strengths are many, it’s weaknesses few but the one thing I find lacking about it is the lack of integration between my Analytic stats and the wordpress interface. It would be very convenient to have a sidebar to access the Analytics numbers but alas, I have yet to find a plugin to do so. It’s kind of tedious to have to log into the separate Analytics site and it sucks that my other writers aren’t able to view the stats (since it’s tied to my personal email) Once I find the plugin to change all that though, everything will fall in place and I can happily keep track of the statistics of all you merry visitors.

So in conclusion, what do you think I should follow in the end? Should I continue to have faith with Statpress or should I just put all my eggs in the Google basket? If not, what other options are out there that other people find more reliable? I would love to hear your stories of stat tracking as well as your recommendations. A few suggestions on what options to edit and what tracker you’re using on your blog will be of great help too (as well as some help with all these spiders and feed readings that I’ve seen floating around…. )

I await your response…..