Who's hitting my website?

[C0ppert0p]

I'm interested in knowing who and where my hits are coming from and what they are looking at. The current graphs provided do not provide any information that is particularly useful for a business.

I'm assuming Smugmug is using some varient of Apache, possibly version 2. along with Tomcat, mod rewrite etc. some other app software and some db software.

Are the apache access logs available at all to somebody who knows how to use them? If not are there any plans to provide the pro customers with something like Webtrends reports, (well not Webtrends, because it is way overpriced.), but something like Webtrends that gives some decent reports.

[Mike Lane]

Originally Posted by C0ppert0p

I'm interested in knowing who and where my hits are coming from and what they are looking at. The current graphs provided do not provide any information that is particularly useful for a business.

I'm assuming Smugmug is using some varient of Apache, possibly version 2. along with Tomcat, mod rewrite etc. some other app software and some db software.

Are the apache access logs available at all to somebody who knows how to use them? If not are there any plans to provide the pro customers with something like Webtrends reports, (well not Webtrends, because it is way overpriced.), but something like Webtrends that gives some decent reports.

http://www.statcounter.com

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Mike Lane

http://www.statcounter.com

statcounter, right on.

[flyingpylon]

Statcounter or variations thereof can be good if you accept their limitations. The problem is that you'll never be able to really tell who is requesting specific images (as opposed to pages) without seeing the logs. Based on previous discussions, I wouldn't expect that to be anytime soon.

[Techman1]

I'm using Statcounter and can tell who is looking at what images. I can tell if someone is going back to the same image several times too. The free version only covers the first 100 page views, so that can get absorbed very quickly if you have a large number of images & categories to view. They offer an extended view for a monthly charge in case you are extremely interested in who is visiting your site.

Good luck in your search.

Fred

[Fuzzytek]

Originally Posted by flyingpylon

Statcounter or variations thereof can be good if you accept their limitations. The problem is that you'll never be able to really tell who is requesting specific images (as opposed to pages) without seeing the logs. Based on previous discussions, I wouldn't expect that to be anytime soon.

I'm using StatCounter also and through the information on the log, I can get down to the IP address of the viewer - and know specifically what image they are viewing. I know where they came from, how long they stayed on my site, ... a lot of details. Granted the logsize of 100 for free subscription holds the detailed information for a short length of time. That's why they have paid subscriptions that increase your log size.

[behr655]

I'm using starcounter also. I've just been re-setting the counter after 100 hits.


Bear

[flyingpylon]

I believe that what you guys are seeing are requests for the *page* that a given image is on, not the request for the image itself. There is a big difference.

Say that someone really liked your images and decided to hotlink them from another web site (or forum, or eBay, etc.). Statcounter would never be able to pick this up, yet it would certainly count against your Smugmug bandwidth.

If you're not familiar with hotlinking, it's when someone inserts an image tag in the HTML of a web page that directly references an image located on another web server somewhere. So to the average visitor, the image looks like part of the hotlinker's web site, yet the image does not exist on their web server and it uses up the original owner's bandwidth (not to mention violating their copyright). Granted, all of this can only happen if you have "external linking" turned on in your Smugmug galleries.

The other problem with Statcounter is that it's possible for people to "turn off" requests for tracking images in their browser. There probably aren't a huge number of people that do this, but some people see it as a security issue, and some security software will turn off these requests by default. So you won't be getting 100% accurate results.

All of that said, I always say that "There are lies, damn lies, statistics, and then there are web statistics". All of the methods for tracking web traffic have issues, you just have to know what they are so that you're not getting fooled.

[Blurmore]

Does the stat counter script go in the BODY tag box of smugmug co-branding?

[rainforest1155]

Originally Posted by Blurmore

Does the stat counter script go in the BODY tag box of smugmug co-branding?

Don't put it there - this might screw up your page. The footer is the best place to put it in.

Sebastian

[Mike Lane]

Originally Posted by rainforest1155

Don't put it there - this might screw up your page. The footer is the best place to put it in.

Sebastian

If you put it in the body box of your cobranding it WILL screw up your page.

[rainforest1155]

Originally Posted by Mike Lane

If you put it in the body box of your cobranding it WILL screw up your page.

Haven't tried it myself - maybe SM has some code to prevent this from happening.

Sebastian

[Blurmore]

Originally Posted by Mike Lane

If you put it in the body box of your cobranding it WILL screw up your page.

I put it there because it said to on the stat site, and so far as I can tell...itdid not screw anything up

[rainforest1155]

Originally Posted by Blurmore

I put it there because it said to on the stat site, and so far as I can tell...itdid not screw anything up

What they meant there was to put it between <body> and </body> - the body part. The SM body tag field is that stuff that is put into the body tag - <body my code>. That's a whole different thing and even though it does seem to work for you, you never know if it'll work for every other browser out there.
To put it between <body> and </body>, like the statcounter guys advised you have to put it either into the footer html or header html (this will most likely disable the search bar and style selector of your homepage).

Hope this helps,
Sebastian

[Blurmore]

Originally Posted by rainforest1155

What they meant there was to put it between and - the body part. The SM body tag field is that stuff that is put into the body tag - . That's a whole different thing and even though it does seem to work for you, you never know if it'll work for every other browser out there.
To put it between and , like the statcounter guys advised you have to put it either into the footer html or header html (this will most likely disable the search bar and style selector of your homepage).

Hope this helps,
Sebastian

thanks I putit in the footer, and I'm hoping it still works

[rainforest1155]

Originally Posted by Blurmore

thanks I putit in the footer, and I'm hoping it still works

That's much better now. Just look at your statcounter log - you should have me (from Germany) going to your photoshop-gallery, getting the second photo medium-sized and then in large.

Sebastian

[DavidTO]

What about Mint?

[mbrady]

Originally Posted by flyingpylon

I believe that what you guys are seeing are requests for the *page* that a given image is on, not the request for the image itself. There is a big difference.

Say that someone really liked your images and decided to hotlink them from another web site (or forum, or eBay, etc.). Statcounter would never be able to pick this up, yet it would certainly count against your Smugmug bandwidth.

You're correct. Statcounter will only get the info if a page with its code is served up. A direct link to an image will not be registered in the Statcounter log. But until and unless smugmug greatly beefs up their statistics reports, that's about the best solution for now.

Matt

[Mike Lane]

Originally Posted by Blurmore

I put it there because it said to on the stat site, and so far as I can tell...itdid not screw anything up

Trust me please. What statcounter wants you to do is to put the code in the body of the document. What the body section of the smugmug cobranding does is replace the tag with what you put in there (this is something the statcounter people know nothing about). If you use any themes they won't work right. If you try to do any cobranding yourself, you're going to have a heck of a time trying to get things to work.

It is a simple matter of cutting and pasting from the body tag box to the footer html box.

EDIT: I see you did this... so nevermind.

[Mike Lane]

Originally Posted by DavidTO

What about Mint?

That won't be something you can use on your smugmug site since it requires the ability to access a mySQL server and PHP neither of which you can do with your smugmug site.

On the other hand, that looks like a very interesting application for someone with dedicated hosting like...oh I don't know...me.