Bloggers will all agree that having a clear understanding of where your visitors are coming from, how many there are, and whether or not the number of new visitors (unique visitors) to their blogs is growing is important. I have been reviewing non-javascript free third party visitor tracking widgets that can be used on wordpress.com blogs. Some are real time stats counters like getclicky and some are not. Thus far I have found only two counters that can be used to track the number of unique visitors hitting on a page.
Hits, Page Views, Unique Visitors
What is a hit? In web analytics, a hit is any request for a file from a web server. By request means a hit calculates page content delivered, all images to complete that page, and any additional files that need to be loaded to make the web page you are looking at, appear the way it does.
What is a page view? A page view is a request to load a single page of an internet site that results from a page request from a web surfer clicking on a link on another HTML page which is pointing to the page in question.
What is a unique visitor? A unique visitor is access from a single IP to a web server that generates page views and hits during a particular visit. When a visitor has cookies disabled, there is no way of establishing if they are a unique visitor or not. — Visitor tracking on WordPress.com blogs
Yesterday I discovered Pax Counters. They offer both free javascript counters that cannot be used on wordpress.com blogs and free HTML (no script) counters that can be used on wordpress.com blogs. Pax Counters counters help you track unique visitors and page loads. Just register with Pax Counters and choose (no script) and then copy and paste the small bit of HTML code and get these great features:
- Free website statistics
- Type __ Every Page Hit and/or __ Every Unique User
- Easily Customize the look of your counter – 100′s of Styles to choose from
- Reset your counters from our web interface
Today I discovered another free counter using only HTML that tracks unique visitors. Easy Counter has 18 counter designs for you to choose from – each with a different font and background color. However, do take note of this:
EasyCounter provides free stat counter services to practically every kind of website. (Please view our Terms and Conditions to see which websites our prohibited from using our counters.)
… strictly prohibits using the Easy Counter on web pages containing pornography or similar material of an adult nature
In order to keep our counters free, we reserve the right to use the advertising space of the counter-banner to advertise products, services, or information at our sole discretion.
With a free Easy Counter you’ll be able to track:
- Hits for the last 30 days
- This month’s hits
- Last year’s hits
- Visitors by country
- Visitors by browser used
- Operating system stats
- Hits versus unique visitors
Here’s the bottom line
Sitemeter, Statcounter, wordpress stats and all the others will never agree. Each one of them decides how and what they will count as a hit. Some count page views and some count unique visitors. Therefore, use any of the stats counters only as a general guide to hits.
Understand that an application that is not running on the same servers your blog is on is going to be susceptible to wild fluctuations. This is because all hits have to be transferred over the internet to different servers, and there are literally thousands of things that can go wrong between the server your blog is on and the server at the stats place.
Also be aware of the possibility that the software or hardware at the stats place may be broken and not recording, or counting things as intended.
Discussion
Are you using a third party visitor tracking widget ion your wordpress.com blog? If so, which one are you using? Do you know of any other non-javascript unique visitor counters that can be used on wordpress.com blogs?
Related post found in this blog:
Why javascript is a security risk
Visitor tracking on WordPress.com blogs
Real time visitor tracking (non-JavaScript) for blogs
getclicky real time stats for wordpress.com blogs
Cenay : Blogging Coach
February 13, 2010
Does WordPress.com let you upload an option? I am on a self-hosted WordPress.org style blog, and found that Slimstat (based on Short Stat) to be a real goldmine of information.
I made a video about it and how to install it, but if WordPress.com doesn’t allow upload, probably won’t work for you.
timethief
February 13, 2010
Hello there and thanks for the visit.
pommepal
February 13, 2010
G’day from Aus, Thanks for the tips on counters. I am going to try the easy counter. I have enrolled and received the html code, now where do I post it?? Is it into a new post? Will it show the countries people come from as you have on your site? Thanks for the help…
timethief
February 13, 2010
@pommepal
I already know from Feedjit and from Sitemeter which countries visitors are coming from. From whosamungus I can see how many visitors there are during different hours of the day and I have also that and much more from Sitemeter.
To get to the point I’m using Pax counters; they count page views and unique visitors. I can have as many as I want and place them on as many pages as I want.
I chose to place one on my front page because it’s the most active page. I’ve also placed others on other static pages to see exactly how active they are and if visitors are coming back to them. And I also have an Easy Counter for uniques as well so I can compare results.
You will have to decide where to place your Easy Counter based on what you want to know. :)
hwillard
February 13, 2010
I really wouldn’t recommend the EasyCounter. There appears to be no way to exclude yourself from the counter.
timethief
February 13, 2010
These are both very simple counters and neither meet that criteria. As I already have other programs for measuring metrics I can easily keep track of and and discount my own visits from the totals. My focus is more on unique visitor stats as the rest is pretty well covered.
Have you read the other articles in the series?
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/01/06/getclicky-real-time-stats-for-wordpress-com-blogs/
http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/real-time-visitor-tracking-non-javascript-for-blogs/
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2009/10/02/visitor-tracking-on-wordpress-com-blogs/
dreamsburnred
February 14, 2010
Counters are useless.
You refresh the page and poof a magic +1.
Woopra/Google Analytics are much better, but at the same time WordPress.com stats are just fine :).
timethief
February 14, 2010
@dreamsburnred
Sigh … I had woopra on a self hosted blog. It’s wa the cat’s meow. I was mezmerized and spent hours playing. It was a resource hog and I was addicted instantly so I pulled it. I have awstats and wordpress stats and sitemeter on my hosted blogs.
On this blog I’m running so many different programs that I’m laughing as I type this because I try out the tools I review and find hard to say goodbye to them.
These little counters are useful for limited use and for specific tasks. I just found out that a couple of my static pages aren’t getting much traffic and that’s assisting me to make a decision about what’s next. Granted I did have to keep my own records but I do know more than I did previously.
For the record I did not suggest that anyone use only a counter for counting uniques and no other stats programs but maybe I should have stated that in the post.
SEO Costa Rica
February 14, 2010
Hey! Great article! Thx for the tips!
paulyeo11
February 14, 2010
I think there is not right or wrong counter , it is only good or bad counter depend on your apps.
Paul yeo
February 14, 2010
I try to write the comment from my iPhone . Just to know any issue ?
timethief
February 15, 2010
I guess not as the comment appears here.
paulyeo11
February 15, 2010
Hi Tim ,
May i know all your post those wording with hyperlink is in blue color. i notice that mine is not , need to manually do it one by one , any short cut ? Pls advise.
Paul
timethief
February 15, 2010
I have given you instructions for changing link color and link hover colors in the Vigilance theme in this forum thread http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/how-to-set-the-fonts-color-to-dark-blue-for-all-wording-with-hyperlink?replies=3#post-433121
paulyeo11
February 15, 2010
Hi Tim,
my previous msg which i ask you about hyperlink color , i manage to found the answer , after i have change to diff theme , now it is okay. may i know how you install the counter software , which allow your blog to display visitor come from diff country ? can you share with me how you do it ? As i found this tracking is nice.
Paul
timethief
February 15, 2010
We already have wordpress.com stats on our blogs. We can also choose to have additional third party stats programs and counters. I have presented the choices in three other posts as well as this one:
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/01/06/getclicky-real-time-stats-for-wordpress-com-blogs/
http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/real-time-visitor-tracking-non-javascript-for-blogs/
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2009/10/02/visitor-tracking-on-wordpress-com-blogs/
webmistress27
February 15, 2010
Thanks once again for some helpful tools here on WP, we know this is what you do and love, but its always a pleasure to say thank you.
timethief
February 16, 2010
It’s a pleasure to receive your comments. Thanks. :)
lilmaouz
February 18, 2010
Hello! :)
I’ve posted a link (and a google translated one) of your article on the french forum ( http://fr.forums.wordpress.com/topic/google-analytics-et-blog-wordpresscom ). I hope you don’t mind . If it’s not okay, please tell me, and I erase it immediately. I also wanted to tell you that a user over there has found these two links: http://www.amazingcounter.com and also http://s05.flagcounter.com/more/iWH , wich aren’t really hit-counters but it might look fine to some of your readers , so I wanted to report it. You can view the thing in use on a WP.com blog, here: http://lemondeenquestions.wordpress.com (Sorry for my damned poor english! So, if you don’t like this post, feel free to not publish, it’s all right for me, no prob.. Should I say I’d prefer to stay backstage? Yes, maybe. lol. Bye bye, timethief :)
timethief
February 18, 2010
@lilmaouz
I am so happy to hear you thought that my post was worth translation and reading. Thank you for posting the link in the French speaking forum. Please convey my thanks to those who provided the two additional links to amazing counter and flag counter.
Please do not apologize for your English. It’s actually very good and I’m embarrassed to say that English is the only language I am fluent in.
Happy blogging! :)
BaD-GirL
August 2, 2010
Please, can u recommend me any counter to know from which web pages my visitors came from??
timethief
August 3, 2010
We do have wordpress stats on our blogs and in addition we can use third party stats programs provided they do not contain Javascript.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/
As we cannot use Javascript on wordpress.com blogs, we cannot get a complete list of the referrers. We can only use non-Javascript counters. Perhaps sitemeter will suit your needs. http://www.sitemeter.com/ If not then you may prefer statcounter http://www.statcounter.com/ or activemeter http://www.activemeter.com/ or gostats http://gostats.com/
mylesfaulkner
March 30, 2011
Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question but I’m new to wordpress.com and I’m a bit lost. I would like to add Clicky to my blog as I find that the WP stats are a bit basic and I’d like to have a better idea where my visitors are from. From this article it appears I can upload this plug-in to my WP.com blog. However I’ve read other articles that WP.com don’t allow uploaded plug-ins. I trust that you know what you are talking about. So….I can’t really work out how to upload this plug-in. Could you point me to some idiot-proof instructions please. Thanks in advance.
timethief
March 30, 2011
No we cannot upload plugins into wordpress.com blogs. There is no FTP access to free hosted wordpress.com blogs.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
Please what I stated here > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/01/06/getclicky-real-time-stats-for-wordpress-com-blogs/
Lafemmeroar
May 29, 2011
I’m confused. I’ve chosen Pax counter, and have gotten to the part of seeing the code I need to embed, but do I do that in the CSS of my site?
timethief
May 29, 2011
No. We cannot insert any kind ot counter codes into the CSS at all ever. Even if we did they would not work. Place the code in in a text widget. :)
Lafemmeroar
May 29, 2011
hehe. Yeah I figured it out after I sent you the reply. I can do it when I edit my pages or post. Only the counter is a big “eye sore.” Just want to say that your blog has been very helpful to me.
I know how to read Google Analytics as I’ve worked with it before in marketing so I guess I’m just looking for it’s equivalent in these 3rd party apps. Thanks again and I’m sure this won’t be the last time you hear from me :)
timethief
May 29, 2011
I chose the tiny size of counter. You can see it on this page just above the sharing icons. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/popular-posts/