A Note About Site Meter

I like it. I like it a little too much. Sometimes I reload the page to see if the number has gone up. As in golf, the rare success carries you over much disappointment.

I have it trained to not count me, which means it may not count other roadrunner customers either. So if you’re on roadrunner and you’ve hit the site fortyleven times in the last few days, My statistics are blown. Still, as of this writing, there are 24 confirmed visits to the blog by people who aren’t me.

The counter has a “traffic prediction” feature which I just know will come in handy. You know, so I can, uh, justify my advertising rates. Yeah, that’s it.

Interestingly, when you walk across the Internet, you are not walking in sand, your footprints to be washed away with the next tide. You are walking in plaster of paris; it’s soft and receptive but it doesn’t forget. I worry that this is going to be creepy for you guys, and if it is I’ll remove the counter, but for me it’s great fun. If you click on the number over there you will see the same statistics that I see. At least I think you will.

For instance, today someone who had his or her computer set to Western Australia Time dropped by because of a trackback link I left over at Haloscan. He looked at the main page, and didn’t click any links. Not that there was any reason for him to do so unless a category name caught his fancy.

The stats never show enough to pin down the exact person, but with a little knowledge (now, just who could it be at hearthnhome.com? And Bob, don’t you have better things to be doing while you’re at work?) you can make a pretty good guess.

So, like I said, if this bugs you I’ll stop, or if you don’t mind me seeing the stats but don’t want the whole damn world to know I can fix it that way as well. I just thought you would find it interesting to know just what THEY know about every page you load.

Damn! I didn’t want to end this on a paranoid angle. I like seeing who’s visited, and I have no current plans to use the information for nefarious purposes. But anyway, it’s you guy’s call.

10 thoughts on “A Note About Site Meter

  1. OK, there’s one nefarious purpose… I know who hasn’t come by lately, and they’ll be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

    Jess, you’d better warn Stefani. This place needs her acerbic commentary and take-no-prisoners prose. It’d be a shame to lose her to the revolution.

    I’m gonna refresh the page one more time…

  2. Well, there were a lot of clicks from me a couple of days ago, because I was curious to see if anybody commented on the political rambling. Its interesting that we have fun and chime in on the gyrocycle or the hotel on the moon, but we have no comment on the current state of affairs. I don’t find fault with this, in fact I think its a comment on how serious our times are…its too trouble filled to think about and to collect two cents for analysis.

    So why didn’t I comment? I didn’t really have much to add or subtract, and especially not at a mere 1000 words (which is no dig at you, just a fact of life).

  3. Don’t forget, there’s nothing stopping you from posting twice in a row, as long as you wait 30 sec between posts.

  4. I have no problem with site meter, but am curious if our email address can be mined. I don’t have nearly enough herbal viagra spams as i’m hovering at a mere 24 a day. Now I must play with the comment symbols provided by haloscan.

    :) ;) :( :-: :+: :?: :o( 8) :lol:

  5. Of course, I have better things I *could* be doing at work. I’m just doing my part to drive up the counter. If that means I have to take some work home with me and do it after the kids are asleep, then so be it.

  6. Now, alas, John’s visits will be ignored, as I have trained Site Meter to ignore visits from this address. The good news is that all roadrunner users will now show up in the stats.

  7. The site meter has passed the 100 mile stone! Given that John’s visits won’t count for a while, the rest of us will just have to pick up our pace.

  8. Interestingly, I have been getting four or five hits from Google each day, starting three days ago. I think I’ll write more about it in an actual blog entry.

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