Let's hear it for StatCounter

A few days ago I mentioned that SiteMeter, which I'd used since starting this blog almost eight years ago and with which I'd had a number of problems, had started to give me so much trouble that I'd abandoned it.  I said I'd rely on Blogger Stats (BS), Google Analytics (GA) and Google Feedburner (GF) to keep abreast of my traffic in future.  I also asked for input from my readers about what they used.

A number of you recommended StatCounter.  I had a look at it, and decided to give it a try.  I have to admit, it's pretty impressive.  It's picked up many, if not most of my visitors through my RSS feed (something SiteMeter just couldn't get right), and they're showing up in its statistics.  It's also identifying initial versus repeat visits each day with considerable accuracy, and its findings are borne out by GA to a large extent.  It's still far below BS in its estimate of page views, but close to GA's figure.  I suspect the differences may lie in how each site defines a 'page view'.

All in all, I can recommend StatCounter to my fellow bloggers.  It looks as if it's living up to its promises.  I'm confident enough in it that I've combined the final visitor totals from SiteMeter with those from my RSS feed (provided by GF) and entered them into StatCounter as a starting figure.  As of today, it looks like I've had a total of just over 6,500,000 visits since I started blogging.  That's a pretty sobering total when you think about it.  All of you folks, coming here so often just to read my scribblings?  I'm humbled, and very grateful to you all.

I've replaced Sitemeter's visitor counter with that of StatCounter at the foot of the sidebar.  Here's hoping for a happy relationship with them over the next few years.  Thank you to everyone who recommended them.

Peter