[UPDATE July 9, 2015: Sitemeter has been working again for the last two days for me. It is still going to Vindicosuite and I will be looking at Statcounter as people have recommended when I have a little more time.]
[UPDATE June 30, 2015 10:45pm Alaska Daylight Time: An hour ago I checked Sitemeter and it was still saying to try back in a few minutes. But now there is something back up, but it's still whacked. There are days with way more hits than I ever get and there are days with zero hits. But it's a sign someone is working on it.
OK, back to the original post.]
I signed up for Sitemeter probably back in 2007. At that time it was a one man operation and if I had a question I could email him and get a quick personal response signed by David Smith. It gave me formats for seeing who was visiting my blog that were different from others - more precise and meaningful. It also revealed to me how much data websites get from visitors - ip address, location, kind of computer in detail, search terms, browser, and much more. Not everything from every visitor, but more than most realize.
I've voiced praise and frustration with Sitemeter in the past.
Then at some point Sitemeter apparently was bought by MySpace. Since then things have gone downhill. Reports about MySpace selling information about Sitemeter users would come up. Sitemeter stopped answering any of my help requests or comments.
Recently, something called vindicosuite started showing up and gumming things up. From a google forum:
Mark Liberman said:
I posted about this on Language Log (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=16345).
x.vindcosuite.com seems to be "passive DNS replicator", which may be performing a genuine function; but apparently buggy software at sitemeter results in pages with sitemeter counting code on them getting redirected there.
I've been seeing intermittent flashes of this sort of thing from sitemeter for over a year, and during that same period of time, the company has failed to respond to repeated questions directed at their "support" team.
As of yesterday evening, the problem was categorical rather than intermittent, so I removed the sitemeter code from the WordPress theme, and the problem went away.
As far as I can tell, this is a symptom of incompetence rather than malice, but in any case, sitemeter is clearly more trouble than it's worth.
Then Sitemeter was down for nearly day and when it returned, it was totally whacked. It would show the same hit 30 or 40 times in my stats. My stats are totally crazy. I'd note that the number of hits Sitemeter tells me I get (generally in the 200 range each day) is wildly different from Google's count of over 1000. But the Sitemeter info on individual hits tells me more about who visits what pages. (No, there are no specific names connected to the visitors, but for some repeat visitors I can tell.)
I'd totally get rid of it, but that just adds one more thing to my todo list - finding another good stat counter. And my todo list is already way too long.
I've had the same problem the past few days with Sitemeter. The number of page views to my site just exploded to over 600,000 per day! My site deals exclusively with encyclicals of the Popes, so I expected my hits and page views to greatly increase with the release of Pope Francis' latest encyclical.
ReplyDeleteNormally, I get between 2-3000 page views per day .... so I figured that would likely go way up, maybe 4 to 5 ... maybe even 10 times, for a few days. But not 200 times.
I do like the information Sitemeter gives about individual hits ... like the actual referring URL. The problem is that I have hundreds of pages on my site, and it's a huge hassle to delete the Sitemeter script from each and every page!
Found you by hunting for Sitemeter problems - it's been down for me for well over a week now. My account there has been unavailable for that long. Perhaps your problem has led to them running out of space ?
ReplyDeleteIf you're still looking for an alternate, try statcounter. It gives you a little more information than Sitemeter ever did, including more detail for individual hits.
Good luck !
Sitemeter quit working on y site 6/21/15. Page views was inflated to over 2000/hr from usual 500-600hr /just before it quit. I got the try again in a few minutes message for a couple of days. The the Invalid user message showed for 5 days. Now back to try again in a few minutes. Been with Sitemeter since 6/9/99. Removing code and giving up on them today.
DeleteExactly the same pattern on my site - page views per visit suddenly went from 3 or 4 to 200? In 30 seconds? Looking at the Treaty of Sevres?
ReplyDeleteNo answer, no access to any kind of help. I'm taking it down now.
Yes, Martin, Sleepypete, and Anons, thanks for the reports that we all seem to have the same experience. But Anon June 29, with Greece facing a European humiliation, neighbor Turkey's formal loss of empire may have suddenly found new interest. :)
ReplyDeleteAll I've gotten for days now is:
"The report is currently unavailable.
Please wait a few minutes and try again."
Am having the same problem. "The Site Meter database for your account is currently unavailable. Please wait a few minutes and try again." I've used SiteMeter for many years; never saw anything like this. I want to get my stats for June and then shut it down.
ReplyDeleteHaving the same problem. I have used sitemeter for ten years and been very happy with it. On June 18th, my stats exploded. Then since June 24th, nothing. When I refresh my web site, the sitemeter icon flashes briefly, then disappears.
ReplyDeleteExactly same issues as described above. The sitemeter counter icon is not showing up on my websites. I can log in, but it shows zero stats, which is quite unusual since I get about 200 /day. Will take some effort to remove the code.
ReplyDeleteI'm "glad" to see that other people are having similar problems to me. Basically, sitemeter stopped working on my site www.math.uu.se/~takis/ on 25 June 2015. It stopped collecting statistics. There is a fleeting icon at the place where the sitemeter icon is supposed to show, but it is not clickable. I logged into sitemeter and saw that it there were no counts for more than a week. At first, I thought there was some problem from my side, but I'm "happy" to see that other people are facing the same problems. I also tried to contact sitemeter but their contact link found at http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=contact is down. Also, the Knowledge Base link (for detailed information searchable by topic) is down too.
ReplyDeleteQuestion to the readers: do you think that sitemeter is over? Shall we give it up? If so, are there any suggestions as to what other counters exist out there?
Thanks!
I'm getting all the same messages as well. Sometimes it tells me my codename is incorrect, but when I send them my email address, I get the error message. I think I'm finished with them.
ReplyDeleteI looked up on Google and noticed that, at times, people have complained about sitemeter problems. They seemed to have been temporary, i.e., lasting a couple of weeks or so. I'll wait a bit. If you find some alternative, please do let us know.
DeleteWe're at the mercy of a badly-made human construct called the Internet. It's a jungle. One gets used to doing one's job on it and, suddenly, boom! All is gone. Now people are talking about "the cloud", storing everything on random machines. But who guarantees that they will last? It's ok if one is only doing their hobby, but if your entire work and more depend on it, then the prospects are grim. Modern slavery. Submission to companies that are not even transparent.
So glad I found this post! I've been using SiteMeter since 2006 and it is the only source I have that gives me the full history of traffic.. Over the last year or two, strange things were happening and pages on my site kept redirecting to another site. I loved SiteMeter and wanted to hang on, but now that the redirect issues are back (in full forse) and my SiteMeter icon disappeared AND I haven't been able to access my traffic reports. Hopefully the redirect issues will end when I delete SiteMeter. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone had any luck with StatCounter? I also use Google analytics, but it's so cumbersome, especially when you want to get a quick snapshot of the activity.
I`ve used sitemeter since David Smith built it around 1999 & it was very good. Currently it`s dead I don`t believe it`s going to be revived.
ReplyDeleteI have had good success with StatCounter. I just deleted sitemeter that I've used since 2006.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, two of my blogs still show Sitemeter results, except my main blog has been shut down for several weeks, with the Sitemeter counter not showing on the main blog page, similar to what others have reported. If this continues for the next several days, I intend to switch over to Statcounter.
ReplyDeleteIt has been down for weeks for me
ReplyDeleteSame as above.
ReplyDeleteSadly, my experience has been similar to many here. Disappearing Site Meter icon, astronomical stats for a few days about a month ago, and nothing since. It's so frustrating. I started using Google Analytics when problems first started several months ago, but I liked having a historical comparison, and I liked the simplicity I had with Site Meter. Oh, well...
ReplyDeleteI've made it through a lot of stuff with sitemeter. I use other trackers in conjunction with it so I can triangulate, plus I use analytics. None of the trackers match how they run their stats. Anyway, sitemeter has 'come and gone' so many times, I think the owners must be wrestling with a particularly nasty hack lately. It's still functioning great on one of my blogs, in and out on another, not showing up on another, etc. I remember when they moved servers, they patched us back into their network in batches. I've been thrilled that through everything they've gone through I haven't lost a total view count on one blog since 2004, including all the details, which is pretty sweet. So I'm going to ride this one out, as well. Give them time. Always use backup trackers, you never know when one will go down for hack or server fail, etc.
ReplyDeleteJanika, I've switched to StatCounter. I haven't cut off Sitemeter yet, but I'm not really looking at it. The key problem about keeping Sitemeter, aside from the various problems discussed, is that other companies, like the x-vindicosuite, who slow things down and take info from and embed cookies in readers' computers. Not good stuff. That's the reason I'm pulling the plug.
DeleteGuys why don't you all use Google Analytics? It's solid and from Google. And it's FREE - use it! You'll be amazed at all the stats it gives you.
ReplyDeleteI use google analytics and google web tools on top of both statcounter and sitemeter. I find flaws in all of these. The main thing to remember with stats is that trending over time is more important than actual daily data. Stat analyzers all use different algorithms, and each one discounts that or that kind of hit for whatever reason, but when all your analyzers show the same trend, you've got some really solid traffic data. I don't trust any traffic analyzer on its own without others making sure the numbers aren't weighted. The worst phase ever is 'reach', which is an illusion and wildly skews actual reality when reporting as numbers. I do love google analytics, but it's cumbersome, statcounter shows the same data with far fewer clicks. If I knew how to code my own traffic counter I would.
DeleteIs it easy to use? Where does one find it? How does one embed it in a web page (created by html/php)?
ReplyDeleteYes, Takis, it's easy to find and use. Did you check the link on top to the newer post, Hello Statcounter,Goodbye Sitemeter? It tells you how to add Statcounter and get rid of Sitemeter.
Delete"Here's the StatCounter page that tells you how to put the code into your blogger template. It's pretty straightforward and took me less than five minutes."
[If the links don't show as a different color put the cursor on them and they should. Let me know if they don't.]