The nasty little secret of so many bloggers is that we do it for the traffic. There are some people who, in the first four or five years that they have a computer in front of them, never play anything but solitaire. That’s how I’ve been with Site Meter. I’ve been hooked up to NZ Bear’s ecosystem and was proud to break into the ranks of the warm blooded, (I was a "Marauding Marsupial" before my template broke and I lost all connection to the bear’s lair); but, my bottom line daily stats experience has been filtered through Site Meter because it’s free and it’s easy.
Recently I was tripping through Judith Donath’s realm and discovered that (on that day at least) she was using a traffic monitor from CounterCentral. I thought I’d give it a try too, and I must say I’ve been pleased.
For example, here is some data on a visitor from Fiji. Wouldn’t you think there would be better things to do in Fiji than surf the net in search of info on the loudest car in the world? Whoa! Maybe that’s why the guy is in Fiji! Maybe he HAS the loudest car and he’s banished from his neighborhood.
This kind of detail is just one cool facet of the product. The maps are fun too… (see the guy from Fiji down there in the bottom right, just above the Kiwi?)
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve a sister out there, Frank.
I kid you not. Her husband, two daughters, Vijay Singh, several hundred thousand Fijians and she have shared the place since old George Speight got it into his head to mount a coup from Suva.
My thoughts were with her when last year’s tsunami broke as Fiji’s both low and prone to the vicissitudes of tectonic shift. However, unless she took a day off to go shopping in the capital (for the world’s loudest car sound system–most unlike her, I must say), she’s more likely to have been closer to home, at Nadi, the tourist paradise on the other side of the island.
Seems like there are far fewer than six degrees of separation on Fiji and the Web.
Do the hits from mil sites show up for you?
but this counter doesn’t show him/her.
Site meter shows me mil hits (the OSD is on my site right now
Paranoically yours,
Stu
There is a minor difference in aggregate hit count that could come from mil sites being filtered out. I haven’t had my eye on the details lists to compare, but I’ll watch for it.