Stat counter discrepancies
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Here’s the problem: if you wish to submit your blog to a blog-ranking site, you need to provide publicly-accessible stats, which WP.com stats generally are not. However, if you install an html hit counter from a source such as StatCounter.com, the numbers (page views, visits) are markedly less than those generated by WP.com.
I installed a counter in the footer of my blog so that it would record visits/views to every page. (Sidebars only appear on some pages so widgets in sidebars don’t catch everything. Statcounter staff advised against installing the counter on multiple pages. One in the footer should do the trick.) I tracked stats from WP and SC for a week and found they were almost perfectly correlated but very different. SC’s page view counts were 48-50% of those recorded by WP, while their visit counts were 76-80% of those recorded by WP.
I appreciate Statcounter may have a more stringent definition of a page view but for WP to generate figures twice as large is troubling. But that’s not as puzzling as the discrepancy on the visit figures. A visit is a visit, so why does WP record 20% more? Is WP counting bots? Surely not.
These are intellectually stimulating puzzles, but my need is for a publicly-accessible counter that returns the same figures as the ones I’m used to seeing on the WP dashboard. Any suggestions?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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While you are waiting I may be able to provide some useful information.
For details see here http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/ and here Views and Visitors https://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/#views-and-visitors and do note that both the views and viewers and views by country https://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/#views-by-country take hours to update.
Our stats are page view stats. If I visit your blog and click into 10 posts that will be recorded as 1 visitor and 10 page views. But please do not assume that everyone who clicks a follow, like, share, reblog or comment link actually reads the post on your blog because odds are they may not.
Follow, like, share, reblog or comment clicks are not page views. In fact, follows, likes, shares, comments and reblogs are completely misleading when you are talking about page view stats.
Your followers and anyone with a WordPress.com/Gravatar account who is logged into WordPress.com can “follow” your blog, “like”, “share” and “reblog” your posts and “comment” in several locations such as the Reader, without ever clicking into your blog and creating a single page view stat. Subscribers control how frequently they receive your posts (instantly, daily, weekly) and can comment without clicking into the blog.
Logged in visitors using a mobile can read the full post without creating a page view stat. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/wordpresscom-reader-show-full-text?replies=31#post-1373606
You can control the length of the entry sent out on your RSS feed here Dashboard > Settings > Reading. Choose the “summary” setting for your RSS feed rather than to “full text”. That will compel followers who are not using mobiles to click into the blog to read the full post which will create a page view stat.
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Thanks TT. I did get input from two WP staffers before coming here, but both of them basically had an IDK response. They don’t know how StatCounter works and SC people don’t know how WP counters work. One of the WP staffers suggested putting SC counters on as many pages as possible but that didn’t improve the discrepancy and SC engineers later said that was a bad idea.
As I say there may be differences in how WP and SC define a page view, but there shouldn’t be discrepancies in counting visits, unless WP is counting bots (which I hope is not the case). I appreciate there is a lag in recording these things which is why my analysis is based on stats over a week. That was sufficient to detect the discrepancies I reported above.
I was hoping that maybe another member had a successful experience with a publicly-accessible html stat counter that they might share here, and I imagine there may be many members who are curious about these discrepancies.
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There is no consistency between StatCounter and/or Sitemeter and wp.com stats.
Here’s the bottom line
Sitemeter, Statcounter, wordpress stats and all the others will never agree. Each one of them decides how and what they will count as a hit. Some count page views and some count unique visitors. Therefore, use any of the stats counters only as a general guide to hits.
Understand that an application that is not running on the same servers your blog is on is going to be susceptible to wild fluctuations. This is because all hits have to be transferred over the internet to different servers, and there are literally thousands of things that can go wrong between the server your blog is on and the server at the stats place.
Also be aware of the possibility that the software or hardware at the stats place may be broken and not recording, or counting things as intended. https://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/visitor-tracking-on-wordpress-com-blogs/
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According to my analysis there is an almost perfect correlation between SC and WP stats (r = 0.99). SC is counting 50% fewer page views and 20% fewer visits with metronomic consistency. These differences cannot be attributable to glitches (or they would be randomly distributed) but fundamental differences in the definition of a page view and visitor.
All this is by the by and my question stands: Has any WP user had success installing a publicly-accessible html stat counter with numbers that aren’t radically deflated?
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@pauldellis are you able to use an https-only version of the stat counter? I’m wondering if that’s part of it.
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Hi,
Rory here with the StatCounter Team.
The code on this site is currently set to support HTTPS. It calls the counter image with <img src=”//statcounter…”>. The // code allows it to load over whatever is being used (http or https). However the poster should feel free to change this to simply https:// if they wish. There is the off chance it might help!
I tested 4 pages and they all contained the code and all tracked my visits as expected. This indicates the code is up and working.
Please note that these are the common causes of certain visitors not showing up in your stats.
– there is a program on their computer which blocks them from connecting to StatCounter (intentionally or accidentally)
– their network (e.g., office environment, school) is setup to block connections to StatCounter (many firewalls have blocking rules that include tens of thousands of web sites)
– their internet provider is not connecting them to statcounter.com correctly (DNS server issues, routing issues, etc)
– we try to only record real human visitors and ignore bot / computer program visitors
Essentially if the visitors browser can’t communicate with statcounter.com for anyreason it’s not possible to record their visit.
I hope this helps explain things.
Please let us know if you ever need anything. We can be reached at support at statcounter.com.
Regards,
Rory
StatCounter Team -
Thanks for weighing in here, Rory. I will add the https into the code and see what happens.
I have just compared the visit numbers reported by WordPress with those recorded by StatCounter for the past 7 days and here they are:
WP: 1567, 2862, 1683, 1401, 1394, 1463, 1639
SC: 1213, 2276, 1348, 1104, 1068, 933, 1330(NB: For SC I combine the unique and returning visits.)
As before, the SC numbers 77-81% of the WP number except for the day before yesterday when they dipped to 64%. In 2 weeks of watching this has been the only deviation from the trend.
What is surprising is how perfectly correlated these numbers are. This week they are r = 98.2 and if we remove the glitchy day they are r = 99.8.
This tells me that there is a strong consistency between the two when it comes to counting 79% of visits. The pattern has been there for 13 of the past 14 days. It’s the other 21% of visits that WP only records that remain unexplained.
I will report back on a few days to see if changing the code has helped.
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Hi,
Many thanks for the info and your patience. Where are you seeing these numbers in your stats?
SC: 1213, 2276, 1348, 1104, 1068, 933, 1330
For the last 7 days I see this :
Tues, 24th – 1,952
Mon, 23rd – 1,375
Sun, 22nd – 1,571
Sat, 21st – 1,646
Fri, 20th – 1,846
Thur, 19th – 2,981
Wed, 18th – 1,661Regards
Rory
StatCounter Team -
You’re looking at page views (which are <50% of my WP numbers). Since there may be differences in the way page views are counted, I went with visits. A visit is more concrete. For Tues 24th SC recorded 1159 unique visits and 171 returning visits, thus 1330 combined.
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Hi,
Many thanks for the info and your patience. I ran a test from my phone (Android + Chrome) and my hits to your site were not logged. However when I switch to “full site” view (via the link at the bottom) my hits logged ok. This indicates your StatCounter code is not being included in the mobile theme so anyone being served that theme is not being captured by StatCounter (but is by WordPress).
Inside of your theme customizer please switch to the mobile view (screen shot : http://prntscr.com/b8dles) and see if you can add the code via a widget here.
Please do let me know how it goes.
Regards,
Rory
StatCounter Team -
Hi Rory, that’s interesting. The widget in the footer doesn’t change depending on which view I’m using, which suggests that it is in the mobile theme. But as you say it doesn’t appear to be recording visits from mobile users.
Maybe a WP moderator could comment on this?
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Hi,
Is there any way you can shoot me an email? My email is
rory at statcounter dot com
Please simply use the subject “wp”.
I’d like to keep this thread updated but want to inquire with you about something directly.
Many thanks,
Rory
StatCounter Team -
Hi @pauldellis, actually this is starting to make sense. The theme you’re using is older, and may not have its own built-in mobile theme. You’re using the barebones backup mobile theme, and that one does not happen to have a footer widget area — which is where you’ve put your StatCounter code.
The discrepancy is probably your mobile viewers.
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Thanks @supernovia. That would explain Rory’s experience above. However, I wish I could attach a screenshot here because it appears from my dashboard that there is a footer widget area in the mobile version of the blog.
Incidentally, I picked Lifestyle because it was sold as mobile responsive. If I was to replace it how would I avoid ending up with the same problem? What would I be looking for in a new theme?
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@pauldellis I can see your dashboard, but I don’t see any mobile-specific widgets.
You could try adding a visible widget to the same footer widget area. If it appears on mobile, we can troubleshoot further. Otherwise we know it does not appear on mobile and would explain why the StatsCounter image isn’t tracking.
You could also try temporarily disabling the default mobile theme. If your theme has built-in mobile options, it still may not display the footer widget, but it may be worth a test.
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Aha! Good suggestion @supernovia. I have just added a visible StatCounter counter and you can see in the footer, unless you are using a mobile. I checked on an Android and iPhone and it’s not there, confirming Rory’s earlier suspicions: Statcounter is not able to record mobile users; WP.com can.
(NB: You *can* see the SC counter on a mobile device if you switch to “View Full Site” – which I imagine few people do.)
So if I have read you correctly, the problem is my theme is too old. But if I purchase a new theme, how can I be sure it has what I need to fix this problem? I purchased the Lifestyle theme (3.5 years ago) because it was mobile responsive, but evidently it was not responsive enough. What do I need to look for now?
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Hi Paul,
The theme you’re currently using has been retired which means it’s no longer being updated. It’s a good idea to update to a newer theme just for this reason. A list of responsive themes is here:
https://wordpress.com/themes/filter/staff-picks+responsive-layout/
You could test it with one of our free themes first. We also have a 30-day refund policy if you want to try a Premium theme instead.
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