Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Stats Up - Sitemeter Out



Dear Sitemeter,

Vamoose, scram, before I slice you into ham!

Yours truly, without love,

RQ


Like many other bloggers out there, I've been using Sitemeter to track visitor stats. Rumblings today indicate that they've been installing cookies into the browser of visitors to this site - with no mention of it whatsoever to me or any of their other users.

Apologies to you readers out there. As you well know, we bloggers are a notoriously fickle bunch. As of 10 minutes ago, Sitemeter is out and Google Analytics is in.

Speaking of site stats, I've been quite happy of late. While I've always tried to provide some interesting content and decent writing, generating traffic has not been a goal for me. I've never run any ads on this blog so that's not a motivator. I love seeing traffic go up, but I don't write with that in mind. However I've seen a 400% increase in page views since the beginning of January. And while the numbers are still incredibly small by most blogging standards, it's the increase that's pleased me.

Why the increase? Well, I don't think it's just coincidental that I started posting my screencasts partway into December just before the steady rise in traffic. Maybe content really is king. But I do it for the enjoyment of it, not for the traffic. Right now, it's linux, open-source, inkscape, and the graphic arts that I find most interesting.

In a flagrant transgression of blogging etiquette - where traffic flow cards are always held so close to the chest - (what do *I* have to lose), here's the final screenshot from the offending Sitemeter showing the increase:


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i find the combo of statcounter and google is the best.

R said...

If you're looking for some variety, you may find that GoStats suits your needs better. Keep an open mind ;)

Anonymous said...

rchmura - that place you recommended is very amateur. spellos all over the place.

it's statcounter.com for me. you should try it. much better.

R said...

Hi Janice you've got to be kidding right? That is very pretentious of you. Actually I have tried stat counter, and no it isn't better at all.