Comprehensive Website Traffic Statistics Suite. You Have One Yet?

September 8th, 2006

Comprehensive Website Traffic Statistics Suite. You Have One Yet?

Reviews on individual website traffic statistics packages and comparisons between them are in almost every nook and corner of the blogosphere/web. We have established services like Statcounter, Sitemeter and Mint compared against heavyweight newcomer Google Analytics and a whole host of innovative niche packages like Performancing Metrics for blog-centric tracking and MyBlogLog for click tracking.

But is there really need to have a “One True Stats Package”? Personally, I feel it might be better to combine multiple stats packages to derive a comprehensive suite that fulfills every need. Not only do we reap the benefits of specialisation in the process, we also gain alternative/”backup” statistics to compare against.

Here’s my stats suite. Generally, I use only one service per category for each blog/site:

Daily Snapshots
Stats packages in this category will have to be able to display an effective one-page daily summary, with a wide variety of up-to-date (i.e. instantaneous updates, not hourly or daily) statistics to satisfy my Stats Addiction, e.g. Most Recent Referrers, Most Recent Pages Visited, etc. In order of preference, these are what I use:
1. Mint
  At US$30 per domain, it isn’t cheap, but for daily snapshots, this is one of the best (IMHO, the best, but those who dislike self-hosted packages will certainly disagree) out there. I’ve only been willing to fork out the dough for a couple of my domains (those with the highest traffic), but it might only be a matter of time before I transition for the rest. Yep, I’ve to admit I’m a sucker for great layout/design - which is undoubtedly a source of much of the hype surrounding Mint. Read a full review for more information.
2. Statcounter
  If judged from backlinks and PageRank alone, Statcounter is certainly the most popular stats package on the web. For good reason though: It allows invisible counters (unlike Sitemeter). Function-wise, it has everything Mint has, but it’s log size limits (100 entries for the free package, 1000 for US$9/month - might as well pay for Mint at this sort of rates) mean that you might prefer a self-hosted package like Mint. Nevertheless, for now, it remains a staple on all my sites particularly for the summary view which lists your daily traffic of all your sites on one page (which surprisingly is still a rarity among stats services).
Long-term Stats
For the weekly/monthly/yearly analysis sessions, these are what I use. Generally, these packages should have near unlimited, if not unlimited log sizes, and a very wide variety of features. It’s a pity, however, that services under this category generally have relatively poor update frequencies.
1. Google Analytics
  Nothing much need to be said here. gAnalytics is probably the most feature-filled free stats package on the web (with almost? unlimited log size as well) - though its high complexity is a result. It’s probably also the stats package with the lowest update frequency, i.e. around 12 - 24 hours ~~and largest overhead~~ (~5kb JS script) . Painful indeed, but once you’ve started using some of its advanced features, e.g. custom filters (amazing stuff!), you won’t leave home without it. Anyway, here’s a pretty in-depth review of it.
2. Performancing Metrics
  ~~The tiny overhead imposed by pMetrics (~1kb) is only one reason why I use it on many of my blogs (sometimes even those with gAnalytics)~~ [Edit: My mistake here. It imposes one of the largest overheads really (~11kb). I didn’t realise pMetrics calls 4 different JS scripts.] One of the main reasons is its unlimited log size (unlimited referrer data!). Of course, pMetrics’ blog-centric and unique features (e.g. post view, no. of comments, AdSense click tracking) are great bonuses. The only real gripes I have are its non-instantaneous updates (per hour I think, correct me if I’m wrong), and lack of a overview stats page for all your blogs (like Statcounter) - even though it’s been on the feature roadmap for a quite a while already. For more details, see ProBlogger’s review of it.
Feed Stats
Only one entry in this category for me. Care to take a guess?
1. FeedBurner
  If you aren’t using FeedBurner yet, I suggest considering it ASAP. Besides comprehensive subscriber and circulation statistics even on the free package, it makes it easier for your readers to subscribe and adds some cool functionality to your feeds. For more details, here’s Elliot Back’s review of it. Note: If you’re using WordPress, I suggest getting the FeedBurner WP plugin too.
Misc. Stats
Here’s where some of the really niche stats packages come in. Most of my experimenting stays here.
1. Hittail
  Targeted only to search engine (SE) traffic, Hittail is hooking me with one key feature: Suggestions for keywords to work on. Based on your SE traffic, the service creates a list of phrases you might want to target next, and allows you to select some of them for your To-Do list. I’ll be using this on a couple of my blogs until I determine the full extent of its effectiveness.

On average, this means an overhead of around ~~~10kb~~ 8 to 15kb due to stats packages alone (StatCounter and/or Mint + gAnalytics and/or pMetrics) - a pretty reasonable figure for comprehensive traffic stats I think.

Now, a question for the weekend: What statistics packages do you use in your personal suite?

Edit: ~~Deleted~~ Edited my flawed figures of script overhead.

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