Are you a stats whore?

[ses5909]

How often do you check your stats...be HONEST now. On this site I check at least once a day, sometimes more. On another blogs it is less frequent. I think it is very important to check them though to know where your traffic is coming from.

[snookca]

I used to be near neurotic using both Google Analytics and Mint but after running into performance issues with Mint, I ended up dropping it. It's made me check them less often because of the lag in the data population. It's usually a few hours behind.

[Jelena]

In the beginning I was checking stats few times a day!

Now, I really don't care much, so I check it out few times a week, sometimes even less.

[samwoodfin]

Two doesn't even cover it. I check every time I hear the visitor alert, and again first thing in the morning, to see what I've missed. Is a stats slut worse than a stats whore?

[Jeremy]

I used to check them once every few hours :o

Now I check sitemeter once or twice a day, and analytics every week or so. That is, unless I see something abnormal going on, then I become a frantic whore.

I guess you could say I check stats continuously since I have the adsense firefox extension that shows me impressions/clicks/money any time I have a browser window open :D

[pbradish]

2 or more times per day. I've cut back to twice over the past week though. I am a huge stats-whore at part.

In ecommerce, stats are everything - so I think that I've brought with me that mentality to blogging :/.

[davemcnally]

Yup..I'm a whore (when it comes to stats that is!) On my sites that I use Mint on, I use the Vista sidebar gadget so it's constantly updated.

@Snook - It's interesting to hear you had performance issues with Mint. Did updating on time become issue due to high volume of traffic? My sites have so far been updating on time but I do not have an ounce of the traffic you get.

[GnomeyNewt]

I think I qualify since I wrote this post Top 7 Sign's You Are an Obsessed Web Stats Whore (http://www.bluejar.com/top-7-signs-you-are-an-obsessed-web-stats-whore/).

I check too often. But my main excuse is that I am watching 2 little ones and I only really have enough time to hit F5 anyways. I have the perfect excuse to cover up my obsession. Stat checking atleast once a day will alert you if anything if something is wrong with your site such as no visitors or if your stats decline that will also give a clue that something needs to be done. I think once a day is healthy, more is obsessed :).

[ses5909]

You are indeed Sarah ;)

[malique]

i know my rights and i will not answer the question.
i have the right to remain silent.

2 months later-----


Hello, My name is Malique and im a stataholic.

[SarahG]

My AWStats is my main source of info and only updates once a day. I used to check on a daily basis but I have so many stats to look at on various sites now I just look when I'm bored or need a distraction from work.

I guess I'm a little deflated as half the stats on my blog are from bots :(

[ses5909]

I can't believe you don't use another kind of stats Sarah. I know you have a lot of sites so more real-time stats would be handy (although you may end up a stats whore). Check out this post for what I use. You can also check out a real sites stats.

The Blog Experiment - Join the Conversation - View Single Post - What Stats Tracker do you use? (http://www.theblogexperiment.com/blog-forum/showpost.php?p=1389&postcount=9)

[SarahG]

Well I have MyBlogLog (the free top 10 ones), Feedburner and WordPress.com stats plugin, but they're all javascript based and none say the same as the other! I'm not really a fan of Analytics either.

The best stats tracker I've used is Tracewatch which is free and PHP driven, so it picks up everything that goes on with your site, unlike JavaScript that ignores a lot of bots.

But to be honest I'm not really fussed on stats anymore. If none of my posts get any comments then I'll start to worry but I know there are a few people reading so I'll keep on posting ;)

w3counter looks interesting. I may have a play with it :)

[snookca]

@Snook - It's interesting to hear you had performance issues with Mint. Did updating on time become issue due to high volume of traffic? My sites have so far been updating on time but I do not have an ounce of the traffic you get.

It became an issue during my last major front page digg. 20,000 page views in a day is a little more than it could handle, it seems. I'll just have to make do with Google Analytics. I might set up mint again but using something like S3 or Amazon web service since I wouldn't really care if it crashed.

[samwoodfin]

My AWStats is my main source of info and only updates once a day...:(

That would drive me freaking insane.

[SarahG]

Haha. I'm used to it.

If any WordPress users want to get really real time stats, watching what people are clicking on and doing on your site then there's a stats plugin Headzoo Live (http://headzoo.com/live) which shows what's going on, and it's AJAX so there's no need to hit F5. However be warned, it sends your page view and hits sky high as I discovered after leaving it open one day!!

[malique]

any mint lovers?

[davemcnally]

any mint lovers?

Guilty as charged, I love it :o

[kingjacob]

I am a stats whore though 17 hours of homework is forcing me to go cold turkey. Though I still check feedburner and analytics twice a day, and the 5 main ad networks at least once.

[jlee]

I honestly don't ever check them. I know I should even if just for security reasons but blah... I can't be bothered!