Blog Statistics Packages

A number of bloggers have recently asked me to write something about statistics packages - particularly to talk about the stats systems that I use and what features in them that I analyse. I'm happy to do so but I'm not sure how unique my opinion will be. Perhaps it could make a good discussion - so consider this an open mike'. What stats packages do you use on your blog? How do you use them? Which features do you look at most frequently? Share your thoughts in comments below. My statistics habits I use two statistics packages on most of my blogs. Both give me slightly different information - both have their strengths and weaknesses and working together give me a pretty decent understanding of what is going on in my blogs on a daily but also a longer term level. Summary Page - The stats I check on this page at least once per day are: Average Per Day - this is an average of the last 7 days unique visitors. Last Hour - I like this one as it tells me at a glance how the site performed very recently. Today - today's unique visitors. Each of these stats can be viewed per unique visitors or page views. I tend to look mainly at unique visitors. Daily Graph- This doesn't really tell me much useable information - but is interesting. Patterns do become obvious from day to day though. You can also see it with Monthly Graph - This tracks the last month's daily totals. I find this a more useful graph as it identifies patterns and trends (ie like weekly rhythms - how a series of posts might be affecting stats etc). Again you can view it with Yearly Graph - Handy for tracking the big picture stuff. Not so useful after just a few months but after 12 months it can be quite interesting to track seasonal events like Christmas. Here is the Entry Pages- I find this very useful - it gives me an idea of which posts are hot' today as it tracks which page people are entering my blog on. Usually my home page is the biggest one - but there is usually one or two posts that are bigger than others which gives me some indication of what is working and what is not. Again this tracks the last 100 visitors entry pages. These are the main pages that I check using Sitemeter - these give me a quick handle on what is going on at any given time. Sitemeter has other features which I check from time to time like AWStats. I won't show you the inner workings of this package except to say that these statistics are more accurate and comprehensive. They don't just show the last 100 visitors details but capture a whole months and store previous months. They have pretty much everything Sitemeter has on a larger scale however the way my host has theme set up they only update once per day and doesn't really give you a quick snapshot like the sitemeter stats do. I tend to use AWStats on a less frequent basis (weekly and monthly) to track the bigger picture trends. Lastly - the only other statistics package that I've used id Reader Comments... Darren Rowse is the founder of Digital Photography Blog and Breaking News Blog Collective.