StatCounter Free Invisible Web Tracker and Counter

webmaster

To keep our promise me made to you earlier this holiday season, we have upgraded the magnify stats with impressive geo-location stats. This is part of our on-going commitment to sustainably provide you with the best free site stats. For most visitors recorded in your log you are now able to zoom in on their location and see their latitude and longitude position plotted on a map! As well as find out what isp they are using and where in the world they are down to the country, state and city level!

http://www.statcounter.com/features/magnify.html

We love to provide you with the best statistics about your visitors! We are continually improving the stats we offer based on your feedback. However for a free service we are limited by the size of your visitor log that we can perform the analysis on.

We'd love to give all members an infinite log quota, but it simply isn't sustainable as part of a free service. However for a small monthly free we are able to boost that log quota up to what we wanted it to be all along.

For just $9 a month you can increase your log quota from 100 to 1,000! Or for just $10 more you can get a cool 10,000. If you have a really popular website then you should consider the massive log quota of 25,000! As you can imagine, log quotas like these put considerable more strain on the server so we are unable to offer them for free.

Bring on the email reports, advanced tracking and eCommerce tracking in 2004! We need your continued support to keep developing the service. Please keep checking your stats, recommending StatCounter to your friends and take advantage of the upgrades if you can afford it.

Happy New Year to you all!

dfnet · Joined: 10 Nov 2003 Posts: 12

I noticed that the magnified reports are claiming that JavaScript is disabled for all my visitors. That seems highly unlikely, as the majority of users would be expected to have JavaScript enabled by default. Any idea why the StatCounter reports are showing this:?:

webmaster · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 10:09 pm Post subject:

I'd suggest you don't break the StatCounter terms and conditions by changing the code and removing the essential javascript code to track that information.

hippychixshop · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 1

I'm waiting for the enhancement that'll use satellite telemetry to peek over the visitor's shoulder to watch them surf your site and to beam them the barely audible message, "BUY!". Cool

webmaster · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:31 pm Post subject:

that's due in the next release hippy chick.

dfnet · Joined: 10 Nov 2003 Posts: 12

oldzbutgoodies · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:56 pm Post subject: OMG

jmho there is NO COMPARISON between "bravenet" & statcounter..
like comparing kindergarten to COLLEGE PROFESSORS

bravenet's free offerings oftentimes have so many popups and ads goodies to your puter... lots of complaints about this..

the simple stats,,that i used to have with bravenet were nothing compared to here..also with no notice they changed it to much less info and SLAPPED A BIG BOX ON MY SITES.that said
CHANGE CODE

yes i changed it really quick...
to statcounter..
THANKS STATCOUNTER..LOVE YOUR SERVICE & appreciate all the extras so very much!! Happy New Year & THANKS AGAIN

webmaster · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 12:13 am Post subject:

Great to see you back oldz. Many thx for your continued support.

dfnet - changing the code in anywhere violates the terms and conditions. I do take your point about the counter code being overly long. There is no need for it at all. We'll see what we can do about optimising it now.

webmaster · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 12:31 am Post subject:

Right changing that javascript to be the smallest is easy but nobody every brought it up as a problem before. And it will be quite annoying to change and maintain. Is it such a huge problem for all members?

bulldog · Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 1

The new feature is cool and really looks great. I am sure it has taken a lot of time to create and it will probably consume even more time in the future. I have played with the new feature and discovered it is a good feature but it records wrong loactions. If your ISP links to a server in another state, the location for your visitor looks like it is coming from a location other than realistic/actual. My IIP for example is reflecting Virginia and I am located in SC. I checked the IIP of a few of my friends and they have mapping locations in NC, GA, FL, VA, and TN - all of the IIP's I checked are here with me in SC.

It is not the program or the programmers fault that locations are not reflected correctly, it is the IIP assignments and the ISP location that directs the paths. Eventually, I would expect to see more control over ISP's, just like the phone companies.
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Bulldog

webmaster · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 1:02 am Post subject:

yeah it isn't 100% accurate - it couldn't be.

But it does get a very large percentage right - the biggest upset is the entire AOL userbase who all often seem to use the same web proxy that changes. it's almost impossible to geo-locate aol users.

peterr · Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 1

4,251 is not a whole lot of bytes, rather small...regarding previous java script comment. I can't see how such a small amount of bytes could affect the page speed in loading.

Your geo locator is great, and if the isp like someone else said is off because of a registry location it's not that big a deal, the vicinity is reflective. The map is great. The details are great to know in terms of os and screen dimensions.

Thanks for providing this service, I will be sharing your site with people.

Thank you for your site.

Regards,
Peter Very Happy

oldzbutgoodies · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 3:49 am Post subject: super

super love all the new goodies!
the amt of code doesn't bother me
hopefully save your time for the new features

mine was off a bit on location too but it is general and it is neat!
thank you again & again

SparklyArt · Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 3 Location: London, England

Great feature - love it to bits!
(And, your code is just fine)
Many thanks
and

Happy New Year

SparklyArt[/b]

dfnet · Joined: 10 Nov 2003 Posts: 12

webmaster · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 1:40 pm Post subject:

if you just want to know about your pageloads/unique visitors/returning visitors and basic info we already have a very lean option.

tick the "HTML Only Counter" option when you are generating your code.

I take your point dfnet we will look to reduce the javascript size into the future.

(the fancy counter styles as I said before was a CPU issue not a bandwith issue)

Annied · Joined: 24 Nov 2003 Posts: 64 Location: England

Great new feature and totally addictive! I'm so pleased I found Statcounter.

Thanks
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Ann

dfnet · Joined: 10 Nov 2003 Posts: 12

webmaster · Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2004 8:52 am Post subject:

many thx - noscript tag removed.

I think the rest of the code is correct however.

henrywest · Joined: 01 Jan 2004 Posts: 3

This is one of the features I have been waiting for and it's great!
However, a couple of problems, I think.
1. I got 4 hits from sources on AOL with 3 different IP addresses. In the summary they were listed as 2 hits only.
2. This morning I got a couple of hits from a referral via a link from my own personal site. This was listed as from Seattle, Washington, USA where the IP is traced back to BTopenworld (81.129.9.17) in UK. My website host is 217.206.220.136 - in the UK!
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Cy

webwey · Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 39 Location: UK

Many thanks for the Geo Location information - it is brilliant, except for a few minor things.

My own entry traced back to Manchester, UK but I am at the other end of the country to there. However, it appears that OneTel uses central servers for the entire UK.

Regarding AOL: I have in the past traced AOL IP addresses and they are served by regional servers (given a specific number), even in the UK. Ok, so some of them may go via Amsterdam, but can still be traced to an area of the UK. A little way back in history, they did all appear to trace to Virginia USA and someplace else, but not now.

Mention was made of a BT Openworld tracing to the US - I too found this to occur recently, though it never used to, but I believe BT have recently acquired servers in the US (for Broadband?).

When tracing IP addresses I use Visualware. Using their Demo service you can input the ip address online and it will trace it showing all the hops it makes. They have servers around the world so just select the one nearest to you. You will have to sign up with an email address to access it on a regular basis though, but it is well worth it.

http://www.visualware.com/personal/demo/index.html

henrywest · Joined: 01 Jan 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks Webway for the comments.
I realise that one often cannot trace back further that the provider's server, like BT or in my case NTL, and that will distort the geographic information. I hadn't realised that BT might have located one of their servers in the US.

I have Neo Trace with which I can do a trace and that will give some useful information. As to locating the actual city I found http://www.ip2location.com/ helpful. They will allow you to enter up to 20 addresses per day for free and it seems pretty accurate.

All this still leaves some questions in relation to my original posting unanswered.
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Cy

webwey · Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 39 Location: UK

Hi

I found that Neo Trace didn't trace far enough - at least not as far as the Visualware server did.

BT used to have regional servers, although each one served a large area of the country, but am not sure if they still do. NTL does or did too.

booksprite · Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 12 Location: UK

The geo-location stats are great and quite addictive - many thanks for making them available. I'm also interested in the return of the country stats which show the number of visitors from each country. This seemed to work very well before. Are they likely to be reappearing soon?

booksprite

webmaster · Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2004 1:15 pm Post subject:

the upgrade of the database server didn't give the increase in efficiency in reporting the country stats that we hoped for. we are looking into this more.

webwey · Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 39 Location: UK

Thought I would put this in here as an example of how AOL can be traced (as I said in a previous post). This entry from my stats of today:

3 Jan 17:23:33 MSIE 5.5 Windows 98 800x600 United States cache-loh-aa08.proxy.aol.com (195.93.32.14)

As soon as I saw the loh part of the hostname, I knew it was London, England. A trace using the VisualServer gave the following details:

ae-0-16.gar2.London1.Level3.net London Uk 2nd London1 Gateway infrastructure

pop2-loh-P6-0.atdn.net London UK AOL Transit Data Network ATDN

195.93.32.14 cache-loh-aa08.proxy.aol.com London UK AOL Inc

henrywest · Joined: 01 Jan 2004 Posts: 3

I am happier now that webmaster has acknowledged that there is a problem and that you are looking into it. As I said before the Geolocation where possible down to city is great.

Thanks, Webway for your comments about AOL and the greater accuracy of VisualServer. I will follow that up.
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Cy

Scanner · Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 3

I think the whole service is great. I haven't found anywhere that produces as much information, as many choices of counter including invisible and such a rock solid counter. If there were somewhere else, I don't even want to hear about it now, I'm well happy with what I get for an outlay of er, nowt!

Brilliant keep it up.

webmaster · Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 10:04 pm Post subject:

Thx Scanner - comments like yours make it all worthwhile.

btw we're after getting our 5th dedicated server now to cope with the increasing demand and we've upgraded the database servers with DUAL Xeon processors and more ram.

I wonder if people realise how much it takes to keep this service running as fast as it does ... Smile

webwey · Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 39 Location: UK

I agree with you Scanner Smile

It is a brilliant service.

No, Mr Webmaster, I doubt any of us using Statcounter realise just how much work goes into everything you do for us.......but do you realise just how much we all appreciate the excellent service you provide? Very Happy

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Live each day as though it were your last, as one day it will be

webmaster · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 12:34 am Post subject:

I know some of you really appreciate it and I love giving you the best stats about your visitors.

I do wonder how many dedicated servers StatCounter will have in 2 years time. Just 6 months ago it only had one! Now it has five!

Bflag · Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Parish NY

For the record, the size of the java code is not an issue for me. It does not add significant weight considering it's plain text.

Suggestion: The Geo thing is awsome and exactly what I came here looking for. However, for me the most important thing is cities of origin as opposed to country of origin. Can you add a collumn for cities? OR replace the country collumn with cities. It is not practical to have to click on each visitor to see which city they came from.

This service is great and I certainly plan to upgrade my account. You guys supply me with almost as much data as WebTrends (log analyzer) which is $500+

Thanks

DavidRehm · Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Posts: 12

Great service, keep up the good work.

I second the request to streamline counter.js -- poking through it myself w/ merely average javascript knowledge (I'm much more at home in C++) I saw how you could easily cut at least half a kilobyte, and I'm sure those w/ much more experience than I could do far greater.

I also think that fixing the bug where Win2k shows up as WinNT should be added to the priority list.

Regards