Sunday, October 26, 2008

An Observation on Counting Visitors and Vanity

Some time back when I hit one of my "milestones," I mentioned my suspicions that Sitemeter (my visit counter of choice) was missing visitors to The Ancient One. I decided that I would test this out.


One month ago today I added StatCounter as a 2nd monitoring tool to determine how many folks were stopping by whether on purpose or by accident. The new counter was set at the same number as the old one.


Just before I started writing this post, I looked at the counters all the way down on the bottom of the page. Sitemeter read 6930 and StatCounter read 6980. Now a difference of 50 might not seem like much but if it is annualized it comes out to a difference of 600 over 6 months.


Yes, those of us who blog let our egos get in the way. We want more visitors; somehow it makes us feel like we are more important, or better writers, or have something to say that others find interesting. Whatever. The Ancient One is no different.


From this moment forth, while both counters will remain visible, milestones will be measured by the higher number. In a day or two I will announce my 7000th visitor according to StatCounter. (SiteMeter will take a few days longer to reach that number but I don't care.


Ah, the wonders of blogging and its ability to feed my vanity.

6 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I finally got around to adding google analytics to my blog. Gonna go check it out now.

savannah said...

i like seeing where people are posting from, sugar, but it is fun to watch the numbers rise, too! ;-) xoxox

Tattoosday said...

Stat-watching is an addiction. Ooh, look someone found BillyBlog by googling "erotic poems" somewhere in Dubai! It is indeed a validation. In the blogosphere, no one can hear you scream. You, however, can see who's peeking into your living room.

Your son the blogger.

Ms. Fairway said...

It really is addicting to watch your site numbers rise and to find out where readers are located. Fascinating stuff.

Shauna Roberts said...

Possible differences between the two counters are whether they count the same person more than once on the same day and whether they count your own visits.

Leon said...

CHARLES: Oh, how we are enticed by those data! :)

SAVANNAH: But the visitors from other continents rarely stay around long enough to even read the posts they happen upon.

BILL: This is an example of a parent catching an addiction from a child. You're the reason I started blogging in the first place. ;~D

MS. FAIRWAY: Welcome to the club!

SHAUNA: The counters, as best as I can tell, are set up identically. And the still miss visitors. For example, BILL commented above but neither counter shows a visit from his part of the country at the time he made his comment. Hmm!