I've operated my website for about a year and a half now, and for most of that period I've used TheCounter.com as my hit counter.
However, I recently (re)discovered that my hosting service provides their own statistics for my site.
The problem is, when I tried to compare the two, the stats are WAY off. As in, TheCounter is apparently counting only one third of my visitors (or sometimes less).
I placed TheCounter's counter on every page of my site, so it tracks visitors for their entire visit. That's not the problem. The thing is that on a monthly basis, the host's counter has tracked ten to twenty THOUSAND more "visitors" than TheCounter's counter.
Now, I'm more inclined to believe my hosting company's stats, since they're the ones keeping track of their own servers. But could the third party counter be THAT far off?
I'm hoping some more versed in the code and operation of counters might be able to clarify the matter.
Thanks.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I know what you mean. I have FastCounter on my index page, yesterday I had 319 hits (not impressive perhaps..) however the NedStat counter on my menu page only racked 33 hits for some reason.
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
Perhaps the counters are only counting hits that stay for a certain period of time, to give you an indication of whether someone read your page. Talking through my hat could be wrong. Paul
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I don't think that's possible. There's no-way for it to know the length of time you looked at the page. You request something, yuo receive it, and that's it.
Hmm. Do both couters go up when you click "refresh"?
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
Also, your host may be counting images as hits...
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
There are three levels of access recorded by the server stats. The first is the number of accesses, which is simply the number of files and images downloaded. The second is the number of "visits" which is apparently supposed to represent the number of individual visits to the site. And the third tracks unique IP addresses on a per-month basis.
TheCounter also tracks "unique visits" -- that's the figure that I've been using to record the number of visitors.
I guess the question is, what is the definition of a "unique visit"?
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
A unique visit is a person hitting the page. A refresh or hitting the back button, etc, wouldn't count as a unique visit.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
What about the "hard-refresh" or whatever it's called, where you hold down Control when you click refresh?
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
wow, thats pretty hardcore
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Shift, actually, not Control.
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
It's control in IE, and it still wouldn't count.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :