Free Site Stats

I use two different site meters on this site:

• Statcounter
• Google Analytics

I thought I would try them out and eventually pick one, but actually they both do different things.

Statcounter (for free) is limited to the details of the last 100 hits. This can be limiting, but the details are first rate.

Google Analytics keeps the details for far longer (don’t think I’ve found a limit), but is less appealing at the detailed level. The graphs and trends are far more useful because of the amount of data being retained.

Google Analytics maps use a flash map which when you zoom in, to see enough of the UK for it to be useful, also scales the font. This means that you can’t read what is in the text box. It’s quite interesting that the Statcounter details are far better, perhaps it’s because they use the Google maps API .

Keeping with Google Analytics, the ability to adjust the date range is great. It would be really nice if it remembered your last date range though.

Statcounter doesn’t have an ability to tell you absolute unique visitors in the same way as Google Analytics does. Nor does it have the ability to drill into the numbers.

I like both of them, and will keep both of them because they do different things.

tags: Statcounter, analytics, statistics