What Does Stats Provide, That Third Party Visitor Activity Meters Cannot Provide?

Not all blog owners realise how unique Blogger Stats is, in its design.

Some owners may idly suggest that Stats can easily be replaced by any third party visitor activity log / meter.

Why bother to use Stats? Since Blogger Stats shows referrer spam, it's pretty useless - just use SiteMeter, StatCounter - or Google Analytics.

They have no idea why Stats was designed as it is, nor what information Stats provides, that no competing product can possibly provide.

Every add-on accessory, such as any visitor activity counter / log / meter, has to be manually installed in your blog.

Most visitor activity counter / log / meter products require installation.

Simple accessories, which depend upon your visitor clicking on a link, can be installed easily - just add a clickable link on your blog - either in a post, or anywhere in the body of the blog. Visitor logs or meters such as SiteMeter or StatCounter, in order to produce usable statistics, can't depend upon the blog readers clicking on a link.

Most such accessories use add-on JavaScript code, installed in the body of the blog (as an accessory gadget), or in the blog template (installed using "Edit HTML"). With add-on code, that references any external server, the installed location on the blog page, of the accessory code, is crucial.

• Install the add-on at the top of the web page (or in the template code), and as your reader loads each page, he / she gets to watch the page load pause, as it waits for a distant accessory server to respond (while recording the visit).
• Install the add-on at the bottom of the page, and any reader, who closes the display before the page finishes loading, will not be counted by Analytics / SiteMeter / StatCounter.

In either case, the page takes longer to load. This causes reader impatience, and motivates the reader to close the display before the page finishes loading. The result - your blog gets one less new reader.

Most visitor activity counter / log / meter products are affected by filters.

Besides reader impatience causing statistical inaccuracy, all third party accessories that use JavaScript have a second problem - script filtering by our readers.

Analytics, SiteMeter, and StatCounter are known to be explicitly blocked, by some browser setting or third party application that may run on any given client computer. Some security products specifically list "sitemeter.com" or "statcounter.com" in their Block Lists.

A lot of malicious activity, encountered when surfing the web, can easily be blocked by proactive script filtering - just permit scripts, from any given domain, only when explicitly told to do so.

Every reader uses security accessories in the browser and on the computer - and many security accessories and settings provide script filtering. Most security is now provided as "deny by default, permit only on demand".

Most security products update automatically, as updates are produced - and this leads to other problems. Many of our readers, who are concerned with security, or who use computers that are well protected, may not be counted, consistently, by Analytics, SiteMeter, or StatCounter.

Stats does not require installation, and is not affected by filters.

Blogger Stats avoids the issues of page load delay induced impatience, and client filtering, by not using JavaScript add-on code. Since Stats is a Blogger accessory, it can retrieve data directly from the access logs produced by the Blogger servers. Access to server access logs:

• Does not cause page load delays.
• Is not subject to page load delay impatience.
• Is not subject to reader security settings.
• Does not require installation of any accessory, on individual blogs.

Besides the problems of our readers visits not being counted, we have the issue of what information is provided, and for what period of time. If you have installed SiteMeter or StatCounter on your blog, look at the displays provided. Each product will mention a limit of either 100 or 500 log entries - and will display details or statistics based upon the log used.

Many Blogger blogs get more than 500 visits in a single day - requiring blog owner visits to the log website at least daily, or to pay for extra service, to provide any benefit. And of course, that log was started only after the product was installed.

Blogger Stats, on the other hand, is able to provide statistics for the current day, week, month, and for "all time" (starting in May 2009, for all blogs in existence at that time).

Stats does not discard old statistics, they just extract from the server access logs, for any time range provided.

• All time.
• Last 30 days ("Month").
• Last 7 days ("Week").
• Last 24 hours ("Day").
• Last 2 hours ("Now").

Any blog owner can see any available statistics, at any time. Stats never has to be installed, by any blog owners - it is already there.

Stats is vulnerable to bogus activity records, created by spammers.

Unfortunately, the biggest strength of Stats - use of the server access logs to gather the visitor activity data - leads to its best known weakness - abuse by referer spammers, which leads to inflated blog read counts.

It may help to understand that referer spam did not start with Stats - nor is referer spam unique to Stats. Referer spam has been around ever since people published websites, and displayed a visitor log extract ("My Recent Visitors") to make their website more interesting to new readers (The suggestion that "This website should be more interesting to YOU, because it has readers from all over the world!").

Stats, like every visitor activity counter / log / meter product, resets totals.

Besides the concern of referer spam, we see various evidences of confusion about Stats displays.

• "Daily" counter resets that occur during the day - never at midnight.
• The inability to compare detail in one display, with aggregated counts in another display.
• Inability to display pageview counts for all posts in the blog.

All of these limitations are simply the direct result of how Stats is designed.

Every visitor activity counter / log / meter product differs, from every other product.

In reality, both Blogger Stats and third party visitor activity logs or meters have their respective advantages - and neither choice can ever replace another.

• If you want to see demographic details about some readers of your blog, you can use Analytics, SiteMeter, StatCounter - or any number of third party visitor activity logs and meters - after the chosen accessory has been installed.
• If you want to see comprehensive statistics about all readers of your blog - without being limited by install time or reader security policy - only Blogger Stats will help you.

Fortunately, all products are free - and Stats requires no installation. Your Stats data is there, waiting for you - on the Blogger dashboard menu.