Good free counters

[kamweb]

Anyone using some good free counters on their websites (or know of a good site that describes them)? I would love to have one that would help me know if it is the same people returning to my site, or if they are new. Also, where are they coming from - search engines etc. Prob. too much to ask for a free service, but please let me know if you know of any.
Thanks
KAM

[el crapo]

Thecounter.Com (http://www.thecounter.com)

[akersche]

thecounter.com is great:-)
very powerful is sitetracker.com (offer great reports!)

[dony]

i use textcounter from hostedscript.
nice i think no problems were.
byez.

[lhgraphicx]

Try http://sitemeter.com

[Coolin]

http://www.hitbox.com has unparalelled stats if you are looking for stats. They stick a button on your site though, it's not that big, but it might deter your visitor's attention though. Therefore, place it at the bottom where no one can see it.

[Albert]

Yes, one of the best stats in theory. They didn't track some visits of my site and the query of the stats is very slow. If you consider hitbox, have a look at http://addfreestats.com/ too. AFAIK these are the only 2 which offer page-tracking. Addfreestats is also too slow for me. As already mentioned in another thread I prefer a combination of http://nedstat.com/ (for a quick query) and http://sm6.sitemeter.com/default.asp (for other details)

[fatman]

Another free stats tracking, probably fairly new, is
http://www.webtrendslive.com/

But for checking stats, they seem as slow as Hitbox. Personally, between the two, I think Hitbox offers the better stats (you can check stats for the month, year, etc, while webtrendslive appears to only allow you to check stats for the day), although it has the bigger and clumsier button.

[Albert]

I asked it already in another thread: Does a counter exists which is similar to sitemeter's details stats of a single visitor?

Which counters have the smallest logos - like nedstat and sitemeter?

What about cgi-scripts? The one at http://pages.hostedscripts.com/ doesn't fit my needs.

[fatman]

I just took a look at sitemeter's example stats. It looks like whatever they have, hitbox has too, if not better. But as I said earlier, you got to be patient with hitbox - it has big buttons, and the reports are *slow*.

I'm however currently in the process of removing hitbox buttons from a couple of my sites. I'll just rely on my web hosts' stats (http-analyze), although I will miss some of hitbox's features that http-analyze does not have (reports on Java, JavaScript, Browser versions, OS versions, etc).

[fatman]

Oops, missed the other parts of your post.


Originally posted by Albert

Which counters have the smallest logos - like nedstat and sitemeter?

What about cgi-scripts? The one at http://pages.hostedscripts.com/ doesn't fit my needs.

Smallest logos. I don't really know. But the webtrendslive one looks like it's 88x31. It's quite nice looking (not like hitbox) and does not entice your visitors to click it and go away from your site (the way hitbox's one does).

Cgi-scripts: I have never used any of them. If you have access to your web logs, it may be a better idea to simply run one of those log analyzers on your logs to get stats. That way, no script needs to be executed.

[Albert]

Originally posted by fatman
I just took a look at sitemeter's example stats. It looks like whatever they have, hitbox has too

Yes, at first sight.

Go to http://sm6.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=samplestats&site=sm5sitefreestuff&report=8 and click on any ranking below detail and you will see what I mean. Maybe it works if you click at http://sm6.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=samplestats&site=sm5sitefreestuff&visit=24&report=9

What do you mean with http-analyze? The problem is with fwps that you don't have access to any log.

[fatman]

1. sitemeter:
Okay. I see what you mean. Yes, it's almost as good as having the web log files yourself. :)

2. http-analyze:
http://www.netstore.de/Supply/http-analyze/
it's a web log analyzer. A number of commercial hosts provide log analysis (stats) using this program. There are other log analyzers of course. There's a free version too, so if you can get your log files, you can always run it on your log files yourself on your own system (you have to set up your own Linux box).

3. log files.
And you're right. With FWPs, log files are a problem. F2S does have logs, but they do not generate the log files regularly, so if you rely on it, your stats analysis will usually be backdated. I think they only generate it (along with the stats for your site) when the system has a lighter load, and so it is often a few days (even more than a week at times) behind. I wonder if datablocks provides log files...