Google Analytics Review
I’m always on the look out for a good stats program for my websites. Since most of the sites I’ve developed use PHP I find bbclone a great little stats add on.
Graphical View
Detailed Visitor View
I’ve a few problems with it, like you can’t compare different months but everything else is really nice, its also free. I’m not a fan of any of the Apache log stats tools such as awstats . Besides the fact that they look ugly they aren’t an accurate representation. They count file loads instead of page loads. So even though you load a CSS file when you view a website this represents a ‘hit’, anyhow that’s another days work and there are ways around this.
So, when I heard Google were allowing you to use Urchins web stats tool for free I thought brilliant at last a product that will give me accurate visitor information. So I added the little tracker code to my websites and check back the next day. But unfortunately no stats had been recorded. I’ve had it running now for 2 weeks and it seems to be having loads of problems recording page hits. Hopefully its just a temporary situation but from what I can tell the stats is a few days behind. If this is going to be the case going forward it is pretty disappointing. The nature of computing and the internet is instant data so this is what you’d expected.
I did a comparison of results last week between bbclone and Google analytics and it is definitely missing stats for a few days.
There is no doubting if the software was recording the information accurately and showing the results instantly that it would be a excellent product, but at the moment its just provoking us.
So here’s hoping it gets sorted in the coming weeks as it has some excellent features.
MJorge Said,
November 25, 2005 @ 10:54 am
Hello, i am with one doubt at analytics and i see that u have also tested it maybe you could give me a help.
Here is the doubt:
I have created one website profile (http://www.beedigital.net ) and stick the javascript in my (http://www.beedigital.net/index.html ) file.
So far so good, the doubt is that i have a blog at (http://www.beedigital.net/blog ) and so i have created a filter at analytics to give the stats of this directory separated…
My question is: do i have to stick the same javascript code at my (http://www.beedigital.net/blog/index.php ) file too?
i have my account at Analytics at maybe two weeks and no results until now. Is this normal? Shouldn´t my stats appear by now?
I ask you gently that u give me an answer to my email, case u can help…
Thks.
Derek Said,
November 25, 2005 @ 7:04 pm
Yes you do need to put the javascript in your blog as well. I see your using wordpress like me. You can install a plugin that will do this for you.
There is a plugin that does this for you, all you have to do is put in the right UID given to you by google.
http://cavemonkey50.com/code/google-analyticator/
Recently google sent a service email on analytics which says that the delay will continue but that all hits are being recorded now.
MJorge Said,
December 8, 2005 @ 11:08 pm
Yes, everything working now. Thanks for the help.
David Said,
January 11, 2006 @ 5:44 pm
Hi Derek, Google is finally opening back up the Analytics to people that were not as quick as you in signing up. They are now doing invitation codes similar to when Gmail was in beta. Can you check to see if they grant current Google Analytic users invitation codes to give out? And if so would you mind sending me an invitation? Much thanks.
Derek Said,
February 16, 2006 @ 8:10 pm
I had a look around my Google Analytics account but I couldn’t find a place to send invitations. Its possible that only Google are sending out invitations.
Sorry about that..
Alan Said,
March 15, 2006 @ 2:44 am
Hi, respect, for all your knowledge.
I’m not expert but I’m sure that wish google analitic for my web blog.
The preobles is found the invitation code.
I request a lot of time but with no success.
Can anyone help me?
Btw you suggest or not bbclone?
greetz
Derek Said,
March 15, 2006 @ 2:54 am
BBclone is alright for basic stats but you need to be fairly technically minded to install it.
There isn’t any easy way to get a google invitation as far as I can tell at the moment.
Alan Said,
March 15, 2006 @ 4:37 pm
Well, thank you for your replay Derek, very appreciated.
I will try to install bbclone…. I think is a nice tool…..
keep doing what are you doing man, I like peoples like you.
best wishes
Alan
Alan Said,
March 15, 2006 @ 6:30 pm
Derek, sorry if I use this form to send youn a request… but I really need some help from you.
The question is very easy.
I looked at bbclone setup and install..
I think it’s quite easy. But there’s something that I really don’t understand.
Where I must add the bbclone code ?
to the file header.php or index.php of WD?
and more which of these files ?
the one that is in the root wp directory or
the other that is in current theme I use ?
Thank you in advantage … for real !!
profpixel Said,
March 21, 2006 @ 11:59 pm
Hi Derek and everyone else,
I am still waiting for an invite from google, In the meantime I am using statcounter.com on my site about the Toshiba Gigabeat Player http://www.gigabeat.co.uk
Seems to work quite well.
Garreth Collard Said,
March 22, 2006 @ 4:42 am
Hi Derek
Very nice skin on your blog - do you mind if I ask what it’s called? Also, how did you configure things to sell books on your blog? If you’d rather not say, I understand.
Cheers
G
Derek Said,
March 22, 2006 @ 4:54 am
Garreth: Thanks I designed the theme of the blog myself but I worked off the Almost spring theme as a base which you can find here.
http://beccary.com/goodies/wordpress-themes/ (by the way i use wordpress -http://www.wordpress.org for this site)
The links to the books on the right side have nothing to do with me other than that fact that I’ve read them and highly recommend them. I have it there as a resource for others, i don’t get commission for click troughs or anything like that although i think you can if you set it up properly with amazon.
In order to get it working on your own wordpress blog you could install this plugin: http://www.sozu.co.uk/software/amm/
Rovas Said,
April 28, 2006 @ 6:58 am
Hi Derek,
From two days I’m trying to compare my statistics in Google Analytics and BBClone and discovered the same as you - a lot of hits are missing in Google Analytics… Your post is from November 2005 and I’m writing on April 2006!??!
I can’t imagine that this is a bug in their soft, becuse the service is running from long time. I definitely will stay with BBClone.
Cheers