View Full Version : So much to do … so little time (anyone want email reports?)
I have the flu at the moment, but we are definitely on schedule to become the most popular web tracker and counter for webmasters and website owners this world over. We have you - the members to thank for that. If you didn’t use our services, then there wouldn't be much point to it all. Now would there?
We had a couple of members complaining during the difficult re-launching stage – saying things like ‘we had destroyed a good counter service’. Well I’m afraid this was a temporary short term evil for long term gain. I personally spent 6 months consulting with a number of professionals about the best way to allow StatCounter to scale to allow for 1,000’s of millions of hits a day. But of course we are only going to do this if it is sustainable and commerciably viable.
I’m sure you can appreciate that this was no easy undertaking that we did not take lightly. The old StatCounter service became maxed out on its one dedicated server during September. It couldn’t take any more members. This meant we had to take the regrettable decision of stopping new registrations, in order to ensure a consistent and speedy service was maintained for our current members.
The new system now however is operating across an incredible 4 dedicated services with a real-time back up of all your data, and a daily 24 hour back up stored off-site. As demand increases now, with the new system we’ll simply be able to add more servers to cope with demand. This is definitely part of our plan. We hope to scale out to 100’s of dedicated services – ensuring that your counter will always be kept loading in an instant and your stats are easily accessible.
The new system however isn’t even nearly finished, but the crucial fundamentals to allow the service to grow into the future are in place. We’ll be continuing to work on improving the system based on your feedback. We’ve made leaps and strides over the last few weeks already. But it will be at least 6 months before we release our “advanced tracking” and “ebusiness tracking” services. We’ll be concentrating on getting the basic tracking working first, and allowing member to increase the log size of their basic tracking. We want to aim for mass market appeal for increasing your log size. So we’ll be looking at the logistics of charging something like $2 a month to get a log quota of 1,000.
There’s so much more to say but this is already long enough. I’d like to thank you for your support. Be sure to check out our active forum for all the details about the service. The one element that I am working on at the moment is “configuring email reports”. What sort of interface would people like to see to be able to configure email reports?
I’m thinking something along the lines of click the email icon for your project. A list of different email reports for standard tracking are available. You can pick an email report from that list, then add users to this report. Schedule how often you want it go out, and then submit.
Would you like to be able to just have a to: or cc: field so you can just add in email addresses as well, without needing to add users? Post below and let me know.
britdude
11-13-2003, 08:14 AM
Hi
I hope you kick that flu bug soon. I am totally new to StatCounter, so my thoughts are based on the here and now, I have no baggage to bring to the table. I think your service is brill.
"So we’ll be looking at the logistics of charging something like $2 a month to get a log quota of 1,000. "
As long as you keep a basic free service as well then I think this would be well received as well.
"I’m thinking something along the lines of click the email icon for your project. A list of different email reports for standard tracking are available. You can pick an email report from that list, then add users to this report. Schedule how often you want it go out, and then submit. "
Yup that works for me.
"Would you like to be able to just have a to: or cc: field so you can just add in email addresses as well, without needing to add users? Post below and let me know."
to and cc
Get well soon man
Britdude
delcyphr
11-13-2003, 07:00 PM
We want to aim for mass market appeal for increasing your log size. So we’ll be looking at the logistics of charging something like $2 a month to get a log quota of 1,000.
Look hard at that, would you? Thanks. 8)
mfacer
11-18-2003, 03:10 PM
$2 a month? is that for addtional 1000 log files? so your basic 1000 is free, then $2 for each 1000 on top of that? sounds ok to me!! :)
I think you essentially need to keep it free, as that will attract more new registrations, then once they realise how good it is, if they are getting more than 1000 hits a day, they will prob be ok with paying a little more! I know I certainly am!! :)
as for the email thing, sounds great!! It'd be great to have certainly things emailed to you. I'd really like to be able to send a list of this weeks new referrals and the keywords they've used. Thats what I used most often.
:) keep up the great work!! :)
yeah the email will be great when it's finished.
and also we've just gotten our hands on a database of IP addresses which will allow us to show you what cities/regions your visitors are coming from - not just the country. we just have to upgrade the database servers first.
mfacer
11-18-2003, 03:15 PM
really?! thats excellent!!! Not sure how I can use it, but I'll be very interesting to see! :)
oldzbutgoodies
11-20-2003, 07:22 AM
The innovation just keeps coming here thanks great idea on the email,and cities & regions would be so nice..see which of my friends,competitors haha and customers are peeking at my site..
appreciate all the extra work..wow did not think it could get any better here..
thank you again..
one of the finest sites on the net!!
webmoriar
11-21-2003, 08:23 PM
yeah the email will be great when it's finished.
and also we've just gotten our hands on a database of IP addresses which will allow us to show you what cities/regions your visitors are coming from - not just the country. we just have to upgrade the database servers first.
That sounds cool. I may not have a need for it but it will still be sweet.
Sub Zero
11-23-2003, 07:32 AM
you should have a 12 dollar one time charge
cuz 5 bucks a month is alot....like I pay 9 bucks a year for a .com...thankgod
(im australian and poor)
we might be able to do a $12 a year charge
HRoebig
11-24-2003, 11:02 AM
Hello,
I would be really interested in the email service. Receiving a regular update without the need to log in is great.
I am just a little confused: It seemed to me enabling this service would be possible.
However, I did not recieve any mail this morning.
So, is it just possible to enable the service but it is not working now?
This would really be necessary to be pointed out.
Or was I just impatient and can expect an e-mail later today (I think it said 8am.)?
I think StatCounter is a great service!
Best wishes,
Harald Roebig
it's the next feature we are working on.
but no you can't enable it at the moment. it's not working. but will be.
Susan
12-01-2003, 03:41 PM
Waiting anxiously for some of the new features!
Want the e-mail reports (want this, want this, want this!), and want to update the log amounts! Also - how much to update to view exact country locations, i.e., Stat Counter shows a United States flag, but which state? Same for IP addresses. I noticed the post in the Latest News area, said $2 a month - what does this include? The upgrade page said something entirely different, which one is right?
Another reason, I want the e-mail reports is that it is not always possible for me to go on-line and check the statistics on a daily basis!
Stat counter is very useful and helpful, especially the "keyword" feature! Lets us see what people are looking at and how they find our site! The agency I work for loves the free Stat Counter I installed (because of the report information I am able to give them) and would be willing to pay for some of the upgrades depending on the cost!
Hi Susan,
I know, I know tell me about it. :)
We want to get these new features out, but it's going to take time and we are excrutiatingly busy at the moment. So it isn't going to be very soon.
We are aiming to have an ultra low cost service, for about $2 a month that will have a huge number of features that would not be sustainable with a free service.
But there will be a big demand for this service, so we will have to have the billing completely automated. At the moment we are just manually processing it, so we have to keep the price high to keep demand low for the moment.
But as soon as we can automate and test billing fully this price will drop very considerably.
It's not going to be soon, but we are working very hard to get the new features out as quickly as we can. No specific dates yet.
We want to build on the keyword feature as well - like we said so much to do so little time.
I'm glad you like the service so far.
Al Edge
12-02-2003, 11:31 AM
I have just joined this service, the e@mail once a week to keep me posted on what visitors my projects are attracting sounds just the thing. I ditched a paying service recently as they were free to begin with but decided they could start charging folk. A great deal of my projects are unpaid causes and therefore I would resist having to fork out on their behalf.
That said I like what I have already!
Al
Yeah the email reports will be very good when they're finished.
But I don't want to be getting anyone's hopes us, StatCounter is sustainable at the moment because people log onto the website to view their stats, and see the advertising as well.
For a completely free service the stats we send out in the email reports will be limited, but for a very small price for about $2 a month we could send out a complete report.
What part of Scotland are you in Al?
I'll be going to Edinburgh in February for a few days.
Al Edge
12-03-2003, 07:29 AM
Yeah the email reports will be very good when they're finished. But I don't want to be getting anyone's hopes us, StatCounter is sustainable at the moment because people log onto the website to view their stats, and see the advertising as well. For a completely free service the stats we send out in the email reports will be limited
Aodhán,
I appreciate you don't want to get hopes up, but is it possible to outline what we could expect in the "Limited E@mail" reports?
On a different tack, maybe viewers should be encouraged to visit one of the advertised sites every so often so that "Statcounter" referals can be seen.
Al
Nothing is set in stone, we'll see how the dynamics of enabling email reports effects the traffic.
We'll be sending out reports based on the information that is viewable on the summary page, like we have always done.
Including information that is available on the rest of the pages, for free - we'll have to look into whether that is sustainable or not. But for a very small montly fee of about $2 a month - maybe $19 a year you could have all that information emailed to you on a daily basis, without any need to log onto the StatCounter site.
Al Edge
12-04-2003, 06:49 AM
Like I said in one of my previous posts, the people I am helping don't pay me for their website, so a free service suits me better. If I could get an e@mail once a week highlighting the number of visitors the site had would probably suit my needs. I'm not looking for everything on a daily basis I can come to the site for that. However I dont want to denegrate previous services to the level I indicate above, which could affect some or all of the membership before I joined.
I gave up a paying service with another providor that offers all the frills (which was less than $2 a month, they offered a flat fee for a year.) My paying customers could cope with that flat fee.
The recent publicity your service was given emphasised the "Free" nature. I feel you public acclaim was driven by that and that is perhaps why the membership has been bolstered.
I'd like to see other peoples views.
Al
If I could get an e@mail once a week highlighting the number of visitors the site had would probably suit my needs.
We are going to provide that and more.
However I dont want to denegrate previous services to the level I indicate above, which could affect some or all of the membership before I joined.
So for a fee of $19 a year, you could have the more advanced email options for all the websites you manage.
The recent publicity your service was given emphasised the "Free" nature. I feel you public acclaim was driven by that and that is perhaps why the membership has been bolstered.
It's bolstered by the fact that it's free, and members like you are recommending us to other people. But although we're a free service we keep a very strict eye on our revenue and costs every month, which are constantly under review.
We're going to keep adding as much to the free service that is sustainable, you know renting 4 dedicated servers every month is an expensive business.
savcash
12-05-2003, 01:26 AM
I have two sites being tracked. I think your service is great, I added the second one when you updated.
However, it says it is getting less than 10 hits a day, :oops: yet the other tracker at this free site, netfirms is showing average of 50 a day (up to 80) and yours is not counting anywhere near that high
What gives you think?
Thanks, Betty B.
http://www.casketstores.org
Do you have the StatCounter code on all the pages you had the old code?
I don't know what else it can be, but I know StatCounter is very accurate and it doesn't miss visitors because the load time is almost instant.
ignatzina
12-07-2003, 12:28 AM
My site's traffic numbers are unimpressive, so the information that's most interesting to me is usually the referrers and keywords. I'd like to have the option of receiving those in the weekly e-mail--sorted by popularity, I guess.
Meanwhile, I think that except for the "coming soon" features, the new release is excellent--even better than I expected. Thank you.
I agree that there should always be a free version, in order to attract new subscribers, but I hope that people will sign up once they get to know the service. I'd be happy to pay $2/month to help you continue offering and improving Statcounter.
Best,
I.
torchstar
12-07-2003, 08:15 PM
http://homepage.mac.com/eilsel/torchstar.gif I am very enthusiastic about your service. An email with links to reporting is great- I prefer to not download the whole document or clog up the email servers if it is not needed. Perhaps an option to receive emailed text or a link or html email?
And please keep the entry level account free! The extra goodies you offer will lure many into the upgraded accounts- especially for 2$ a month. I have many online subscriptions that started out as free, and the enhanced version is obviously the way to go once I am in and got my feetsies wet!
I am tracking 4 of my sites on two servers at this point with statscounter...
The set up was REALLY easy.
It would be helpful for the initial "add a project" link to be more obvious somehow-perhaps a bright graphic instead of the tiny text link- I missed the link in my first go-through.
Congratulations on your high aspirations, vision and excellent code -it is obvious to me much work has gone into launching this site! Forget about being the biggest- that means nothing unless you also are technically the BEST.
Sincerely, torchstar
The service as it is at the moment is the culmination of about 5 years work and there's lots more to come. Our aspirations are certainly high but I think they're achievable.
You're not the first one to mention that the "add new project" button isn't prominent enough. Hmmm ...
Thx for the support.
oldzbutgoodies
12-10-2003, 06:25 AM
LOL hi bright would make it more noticeable & probably save you some emails from those needing direction..
brighter logo is my wish too u know that :lol:
I too would like the html or text choice for the email or just a link would be super too
thank you i know you will be the best u all ready are and because of that you will be the biggest in time
great job guys!
(ps stay as nice as you are once you grow ok?)
We've got an awful lot of work to do before we could call ourselves the best, but I have no intention of giving up. This service is going to become the best out there.
We can't do this without you, the members so please keep recommending StatCounter to all your friends.
What do you mean oldz. I'm always nice. Aren't I?
torchstar
12-10-2003, 01:10 PM
http://homepage.mac.com/eilsel/torchstar.gif She enthusiastically told me she was familiar with the service, and without a doubt the webmaster was very personable and eager to please! That is a really great review in my humble opinion. Bravo!
Glad to hear it :) Don't forget to tell the rest of your friends.
I'm not sure I understand what you both were talking about just sending a link in the email to your stats.
You can login to your account at anytime to get your stats, why do you want an email with a link to your stats?
oldzbutgoodies
12-13-2003, 07:48 AM
hi haha we don't know what we mean,,,,lol
whatever you come up with will be super i know it
ps YES!! u have always been nice..Very patient!!
.i mean when you are the biggest on the net hope u will still have time for us :wink:
Al Edge
12-16-2003, 07:52 AM
I'm looking forward to the basic (free) e@mail service. It would be nice to get a choice of receiving the basic:
Day/Date/Page loads/Unique Visitors/1st Time Visitors/Returning visitors
All with a choice of getting the last "X" days in a table form much as it is laid out on the project summary page.
Al
Theophilus
12-23-2003, 11:06 PM
I know that you are working on upgrading things so I'm trying to be patient. Any idea when everything will be functional again?
As far as features go, I'd love to have the option to change how many results show on each page. Right now, the Came From and Vistors sectiosn each show 10 results per page. Personally, I'd rather see all 100 at once.
Also, I'd like to be able to export the data in the various categories to Excel. Even if this means logging in to do it. I tried cutting and pasting into Excel, but it doesn't make the transition well.
Thanks for the service.
Al Edge
12-24-2003, 05:40 AM
I also agree with Theo on his choices.
Al Edge
login to your account > my profile
change the results per page.
you can copy and paste a table from the website into excel as well.
Merry Xmas.
Annied
12-25-2003, 12:08 AM
login to your account > my profile
change the results per page.
So that's where it's hidden!
My website raises funds for charity, so I'm the original cheapskate when it comes to paying for anything as it means less goes to the cause. But $2 a month is so very reasonable for such a good service, that I'll certainly be signing up when you get a payment mechanism in place.
Merry Christmas
Annied
12-25-2003, 12:27 AM
login to your account > my profile
change the results per page.
So that's where it's hidden! Only thing is, it didn't seem to work. I kept changing it from 20 to 50 and then clicking on the "update profile" button, but it just reverted to 20 each time.
My website raises funds for charity, so I'm the original cheapskate when it comes to paying for anything as it means less goes to the cause. But $2 a month is so very reasonable for such a good service, that I'll certainly be signing up when you get a payment mechanism in place.
Merry Christmas
Dublin Guy
01-05-2004, 08:42 PM
Hi Aodhan
I like statcounter !!
I like the way you can have different projects with the same username.
Just one thing on the e-mail . Some of my clients would like a weekly e-mail report with their stats information, would it be possible to send the stats to different e-mail accounts ?
By the way ,, I dont live to far from you Aodhan the far side of the park !!
Thanks
George
Yes we're taking all your suggestions for email reports now. You will be able to send the reports to multiple users and multiple email addresses.
Glad you like the service.
Jo-Ann
01-25-2004, 07:53 PM
Hi - thanks for the service :D Do you have an esitmated date yet when the email reports feature will be ready?
I am interested in a weekly report of unique hits - if the daily numbers are broken down M - S that would be great!
Thanks again
Jo-Ann
Irate Taurus
02-10-2004, 11:41 PM
When the export capability gets working, I would like to be able to export the complete URL data that is available on the "Web Page" part of the Visitor information. This will let me do some string processing and report hits to specific pages to my users. I have twenty users all in the same project and I need to let each one of them know which of their pages is accessed. Will that information be available?
Do the popular stats not do that for you now?
Irate Taurus
02-11-2004, 01:05 AM
The information is there, but it does not get carried into excel with a cut and paste and the only way I can see to get the info is to highlight each individual entry and manually copy it. Obviously, this is impractical. I need to be able, in the worst case, to write some string processing code to extract the information from exported data.
I understand. But I'm just wondering what type of stats/reporting do you want from that downloaded report that we can't provide for you online?
Irate Taurus
02-11-2004, 06:32 PM
Each of the twenty artists on our web site can have up to ten paintings to display. If you highlight the Web Page (middle) line of the Visitor entry, it will display, for example, artist=15, index=3 as the end of the URL. This will let me report to each artist how many times each painting has been looked at and the artist can choose to replace lower response paintings. I cannot figure out, at this time, how to record that information except manually which is not practical.
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