Too Much To Dream

I'm beginning to have the same experience with BlogMatrix as well. I get the e-mail from Site Meter that tells me all the information I actually look at. Otherwise, I usually check the eXTReMe Tracking site because their layout generally gives better information quicker.

In your honor, I will revise my template today! :)

I don't use sitemeter (or any of the others) for that very reason.

Um... I've never had trouble on my own blog with it. Has anyone else? I'll dump it. My hosting service has a better tracking program. Sitemeter is my instantaneous fix (when it's working).

Ok, it's gone from my weblogs.

The trouble I have had is when I go to blogs that use it as a counter or stats-measurer or whatever the hell it is I get:

Half a blog column, usually the side column with the blogroll or whatever, not the content part;

A message on my status bar saying something like "waiting for data from Sitemeter.com";

And as the clock ticks... I hit "stop" and go to some other page. Baby doesn't have all day to wait for slow websites!

hosts.txt

127.0.0.1 sitemeter.com

Ah. I put Sitemeter as the very last thing to load on my page, so if there are problems, all it will do is prevent the sitemeter from loading fully.

Highly recommended to the rest of the blogosophere.

Sitemeter does suck but it is still useful. I hate it when I come across a blog that doesn't have any Sitemeter or other stats. I have no way of knowing if they notice I linked to them. (I also hate it when people have their Sitemeter private)

As soon as I realized Sitemeter was slowing down my page I moved it to the very bottom.

The best hits trackers are ones attached to your server. They are the only ones that are accurate.

Go to http://das.reinvigorate.net
This is a free tracker that does the job much better than Sitemeter and is totally unobtrusive. I like it and I don't need to stick a button on the page either --- eXTReMe Tracking is good, too but you have to insert that button...

I'm got my SiteMeter at the end of my page code--outside the table--for that reason as well. I use it as a comparative measure, since it seems to be the one most blogs have. It's annoyingly unaccurate, though--some days it's several hours behind and it often leaves gaps.

The stats provided by HostingMatters are much more reliable but can't be compared.

Ms. Yourish;

If you use a pure CSS structure instead of tables, then you don't have to worry about it. Your sidebar and main content will load and display independently. It makes your site seem faster even when it's not.

Lynn S.;

How does sitemeter let you know that someone else realizes you linked to them? Do your links generate enough track to see a spike?

AOG: Pure CSS? Sigh. I'd have to rework all my archives, and I'm too lazy for that. But thanks for the tip.

Sitemeter tracks referrers as they come in, more or less, so obsessive Sitemeter junkies can see who's linking to them at any given time. That's how Lynn does it, I'm sure. ;-)

What I hate about Sitemeter is that it lies. Blatantly.

I know for a fact that visitors to my site use Opera and Mozilla and a number of other non-netscape and non-IE browsers, but Sitemeter calls all visits with Opera "Internet Explorer 6"! Mozilla 1.5 is classified as Netscape 5!

Sitemeter says Dave Barry's blog has had 1,838,186 visitors. The browser piechart says they're using IE6.x, IE5.x, Netscape 5.x and WebTV 1.x! WebTV?!? There are visitors using WebTV, and no visitors using Opera, or Safari, or...?

And people say they ignore Mozilla and Opera in their designs because none of their visitors use them!