Hi Harry, what gallery - can we have a link? Stats are being counted and should update every 24 hours (or less).
I think he referred to the sporadic times where the page says 0. It happens to me once in a while just a reload of the page correct it. But I may be wrong of course ... One thought that may help people be more patient would be to have on the stat page the date of the last stat update (so they know how much they can rely on it) and as some pointed out some even rough -- with a huge "I do not guarantee" and/or pessimistic view -- idea on how long it will take (is it in the order of weeks, months, years, decades ) or some teaser more than "I think you'll be pleased" as a SW developer I know from experience that this sentence will always lead to deception of some people (the famous "that's it ?" when you present something that required to you a huge effort). But well this last point may be just my craving for details
But on my hand I just proposing things and I am happy with your effort on maintaining the service while transitioning to something that looks like a full redesign of the processing of the stat (and I know that this is not an easy task and general).
Thganks and keep up the improvement of this already excellent smugmug
Hi Harry, what gallery - can we have a link? Stats are being counted and should update every 24 hours (or less).
Hi Andy,
Can you send me an email and I can respond? This AM I went back and looked at last month's stats and it is showing data for this gallery now. Yesterday it showed a blank page with just the note about stats being improved, etc...
Harry
Hi Andy,
Can you send me an email and I can respond? This AM I went back and looked at last month's stats and it is showing data for this gallery now. Yesterday it showed a blank page with just the note about stats being improved, etc...
Harry
Frustration I just need to vent my incredible frustration with this situation. The last time I got a close to accurate reading on my statistics was at 5:00 AM yesterday morning. With great anticipation, I checked again this morning, but because it was a new month, I got zero readings and that used up my daily check. I have had hits on my site, but won't know what galleries and what photos are being looked at until sometime tomorrow morning. This might not be quite as frustrating if we had never been able to check stats throughout the day, but because it was something that we had that is now gone, and we have no idea when it might return, it is completely and totally frustrating.
Please give us some idea when this will be put back together. Thank you.
this is not a good customer service move!
I'll echo previous posters: of course your overall customer service and features are great, or I(we) wouldnt be using your service.
But one of the features you guys are selling is the built in, detailed traffic count, and you're selling it to professionals who use this for business.
So with all the communications you do, you could have sent something out so users don't panic the first time they see that a heavily trafficked gallery has no hits, as well as updates.
Also, this is just taking too long. I'm getting ready to produce prints for a show and I use the counter to help figure out what might sell...lot's of large image views...good. no views...bad...I'm sure you get it. We know you're trying hard, etc, but this isnt a free site.
I suggest that you offer your customers a partial credit for the time this vital part of the service is inoperative
I just need to vent my incredible frustration with this situation.
The last time I got a close to accurate reading on my statistics was at 5:00 AM yesterday morning. With great anticipation, I checked again this morning, but because it was a new month, I got zero readings and that used up my daily check.
I have had hits on my site, but won't know what galleries and what photos are being looked at until sometime tomorrow morning.
This might not be quite as frustrating if we had never been able to check stats throughout the day, but because it was something that we had that is now gone, and we have no idea when it might return, it is completely and totally frustrating.
Please give us some idea when this will be put back together.
Will this stats upgrade include the ability to download the per-image stats or make more than one month's per-image stats available? As far as I can tell at the moment, I can only view per-image stats for the current month and I'd like to be able to keep track of it long-term.
I appreciate all the help I've been given to help understand this situation more clearly. And, as you know, I've shared some internal data from my own business that I've been collecting over the past 15 months to attest for how I am certain I have missed at least 100,000 Photo View Counts in the month of March. I appreciate the information that the counts can differ according to which "views" the viewer selects, as I set my gallery options to the one that allows viewers to select their own viewing preferences. But, as I mentioned, I don't believe my viewers are availaing themselves of that option to a great extent. And even if I were to oblige that this is happening, there would be no reason at all why in the month of March they all of sudden decided to do it in greater numbers. As an online community newspaper, with close to 200 galleries and close to 15,000 News-Shots posted, I assure you I am pretty confident about assuming which events I cover should attract the most attention (and SmugMug View Counts helped me make those assumptions); and in March, I covered the heck out of those very types of events. From Google Analytics, I can report that the month of March surpassed the month of October 2008 in PageViews, yet the SmugMug view counts for 10-08 and 3-09 were not even in the ballpark with each other; nor was the month of March in the same category with the four highest count months after October. I appreciate, again, the discussion we've had about this issue and I appreciate the reply that I received that alerted me to so many things to consider, including that Google Analytics numbers can be off depending on blocks people have on their individual computers. I responded to that email and was told to return to dgrin for the discussion, and I am happy to be here, doing just that. I can wait for whatever is coming, but I do believe that the stats for March are off, and will be off, and I look forward to hearing how SmugMug will be dealing with view counts in the future. I praise the day when I do not have to be concerned about this, or any numbers for that matter, and just let the content speak for itself, but being in the publishing world, I don't believe that will ever be the case. Still, I won't let it thwart the spirit or dampen the intentions or take away from this incredible journey a site like SmugMug has afforded to me and to so many otheres.
As always, thank you for the service and attention you afford your site users. And please, if you can and when you can, fill us in on what has transpired and will transpire in the future concerning how SmugMug has, and in the future will, provide for an accounting of counts.
IN THE MEANTIME, I will continue to use Google Analytics, consider Stat Counter as well, but is there some other option out there, even at a cost, that others in the SmugMug world would attest to?
Well, thanks for listening, back to work! Time to shoot and post and report and text!!!!
Hi Mary, Your stats are updating: http://www.mcdonegal1.com/homepage/stats.mg once per day now. Thumbs aren't counted anymore but all sizes above (S, M, L, XL, X2, X3, O) are counted.
Will this stats upgrade include the ability to download the per-image stats or make more than one month's per-image stats available? As far as I can tell at the moment, I can only view per-image stats for the current month and I'd like to be able to keep track of it long-term.
and I look forward to hearing how SmugMug will be dealing with view counts in the future.
First, the now: Stats are updated daily, once per day. Stats are being counted. We don't count -Ti and -Th views (the two thumbnail sizes) any more - this will give more meaningful and accurate photo view counts for all.
Second, the future: Once our Sorcerers have built and we've tested, a new user interface, we expect to return to more real-time and near real-time stats tracking. And we have some additional features in store for you as well. Many of you press us for dates of delivery on this - I'm sorry that I can't yet give that, but it's important to us as it is to you an we'll try to bring out these new stats features as soon as we possibly can.
Agreed. Think everybody needs to take a chill pill. The stats are not real time - will be back at some point.
I'd advise everybody to get statcounter.com in the meanwhile - I found it to be amazing for seeing how people are looking at the site and which photos are popular. Head and shoulders above google analytics.
First, the now: Stats are updated daily, once per day. Stats are being counted. We don't count -Ti and -Th views (the two thumbnail sizes) any more - this will give more meaningful and accurate photo view counts for all.
Second, the future: Once our Sorcerers have built and we've tested, a new user interface, we expect to return to more real-time and near real-time stats tracking. And we have some additional features in store for you as well. Many of you press us for dates of delivery on this - I'm sorry that I can't yet give that, but it's important to us as it is to you an we'll try to bring out these new stats features as soon as we possibly can.
Andy,
Having been thru a number of rollouts similar to this in my past, why wouldn't you run and debug these changes on a parallel system and roll them out live when they are ready? In the couple of years I have been with Smugmug, I can say this is very uncharacteristic of the level of support and service I have seen and received.
Let's hope this is a isolated blip and not a sign of things to come.
Having been thru a number of rollouts similar to this in my past, why wouldn't you run and debug these changes on a parallel system and roll them out live when they are ready? In the couple of years I have been with Smugmug, I can say this is very uncharacteristic of the level of support and service I have seen and received.
Let's hope this is a isolated blip and not a sign of things to come.
Jim
It wasn't possible with this type of upgrade, I'm sorry. I wish it were otherwise!
We don't count -Ti and -Th views (the two thumbnail sizes) any more - this will give more meaningful and accurate photo view counts for all.
I disagree with this statement. Seeing the ratio of thumbnails viewed to larger sizes viewed tells me if people were interested enough to click on the thumb to see larger versions. Not being able to see this ratio is MUCH LESS useful to me and makes the stats MUCH LESS meaningful.
Can you please explain how having less data is more meaningful to me?
Agreed. Think everybody needs to take a chill pill. The stats are not real time - will be back at some point.
I'd advise everybody to get statcounter.com in the meanwhile - I found it to be amazing for seeing how people are looking at the site and which photos are popular. Head and shoulders above google analytics.
How/where would I place their code on my site? (Use small words; I'm at about square 1.2 when it comes to understanding code stuff.)
How/where would I place their code on my site? (Use small words; I'm at about square 1.2 when it comes to understanding code stuff.)
1. get an account on statcounter
2. they will give you a piece of code you have to add to your site
3. go to customize on smugmug / site-wide customization / find the section called Custom Footer
4. Paste the code there
just for your reference, this is what I pasted there myself (you have to get your own code since it references specific project number that i replaced with Xs)
<!-- Start of StatCounter Code -->
******** type="text/javascript">
var sc_project=XXXXXXX;
var sc_invisible=1;
var sc_partition=56;
var sc_click_stat=1;
var sc_security="14c9ea6c";
</********
First, the now: Stats are updated daily, once per day. Stats are being counted. We don't count -Ti and -Th views (the two thumbnail sizes) any more - this will give more meaningful and accurate photo view counts for all.
Second, the future: Once our Sorcerers have built and we've tested, a new user interface, we expect to return to more real-time and near real-time stats tracking. And we have some additional features in store for you as well. Many of you press us for dates of delivery on this - I'm sorry that I can't yet give that, but it's important to us as it is to you an we'll try to bring out these new stats features as soon as we possibly can.
So, after all this, we learn there IS a change in how stats will be counted now versus then. I never did understand why the thumbnails on screen, in the SmugMug default view, for example, were counted along with the larger photo on the screen as well, but it was explained back then that this gave a more accurate count, because technically all photos, regardless of size, were being viewed on one screen together. Now, there is a different take on things; now, it's being described as NOT a more accurate count.
But even without counting these multiple hits as one, I am not confident at all that the counts are being accurately reported anyway. SOme of them just make no sense taking into consideration the types of events I'm covering and how they historically have been visited.
Whatever comes forth, I hope the "exciting new features" are worth it to you and to all the other SmugMuggers. As for me, I can't use them anyway; I can't show growth one way, then report it another way.
A bit more information up front as all this was unfolding would have been nice; all I really needed to know from the outset was whether counts then would be comparable to stats now. Obviously, this is an issue with others as well as even the more experienced SmugMuggers are starting to post as well.
Thanks omonra21 for the general advise & Andy for the tute link. The code is in my footer now and I'm looking forward to seeing the source of the continuing high interest in my Grand Canyon gallery.
Answer When Stats are Going to Be Working I sent a Email to the help line 3/16/09 on asking when the stats was going to be up and running again. On 3/22/09 I received an Email from Steve(from “SmugMug Support Hero”) stating they “hope to have Stats back very soon!.” On 3/28/09 I sent another Email to Steve at help desk and he never answer me back on when he expects the stats to be updated. It has been 3 weeks now since the stats haven’t been updated and working real time. I understand website/stats changes take a long time if you run into difficulty. All I’m asking is when it will be up and running again (a firm date). I’m extremely frustrated since I have look at the stats on your website to determine when it is updated. I would also appreciate you telling me what these updates will include. I noticed that currently you don’t record the thumbnail stats any longer. Is there a reason why? I’m sure other SmugMug users would appreciate an answer to my question too. From a not very happy SmugMug user these days.
I sent a Email to the help line 3/16/09 on asking when the stats was going to be up and running again. On 3/22/09 I received an Email from Steve(from “SmugMug Support Hero”) stating they “hope to have Stats back very soon!.” On 3/28/09 I sent another Email to Steve at help desk and he never answer me back on when he expects the stats to be updated. It has been 3 weeks now since the stats haven’t been updated and working real time. I understand website/stats changes take a long time if you run into difficulty. All I’m asking is when it will be up and running again (a firm date). I’m extremely frustrated since I have look at the stats on your website to determine when it is updated. I would also appreciate you telling me what these updates will include. I noticed that currently you don’t record the thumbnail stats any longer. Is there a reason why? I’m sure other SmugMug users would appreciate an answer to my question too. From a not very happy SmugMug user these days.
Arnold,
Same thing happened to me. I received 2 emails from the hero's at smugmug who are usually very helpful. I got the run around until this thread. Coming from over 20 years in support organizations it is totally foreign to me that you would :
- Without warning, removing a working feature
- when asked about when what you broke will be fixed, it is stated that "We don't give dates on new features". to me this is bogus because it is not a new feature I want, it is what was broke to be fixed.
- Told to "take a chill pill" and get stat counter which fills up in over a day with only 500 entries.
I am also very frustrated. While I hear stats are updated every day, I have confirmed galleries that were not updated for at least 48 hours. We continue to receive non-information when it comes to when this will be working again.
- Told to "take a chill pill" and get stat counter which fills up in over a day with only 500 entries.
Can you email me this email - ATTN: Andy at our help desk. I searched our records of emails sent to you, and I can't find a single one where our heros told you this. That would be unacceptable and also extremely uncharacteristic of our heroes.
I'm sorry that the info has been a trickle. The reason this came about was that stats needed to be changed, in order to be scalable long term (we've 1/2 billion photos now!). Don fixed 'em up - and now they update 1x per day (or sooner) and we've got an engineer assigned to build a new stats UI so that you'll have more robust, more granular, and yes, more real-time, stats. And more that I can't say now.
It's coming. Soon.
Sorry for the hassle!
If you can tell me the gallery not updating in the last 48 hours, I'll check into it.
Comments
I think he referred to the sporadic times where the page says 0. It happens to me once in a while just a reload of the page correct it. But I may be wrong of course ... One thought that may help people be more patient would be to have on the stat page the date of the last stat update (so they know how much they can rely on it) and as some pointed out some even rough -- with a huge "I do not guarantee" and/or pessimistic view -- idea on how long it will take (is it in the order of weeks, months, years, decades
But on my hand I just proposing things and I am happy with your effort on maintaining the service while transitioning to something that looks like a full redesign of the processing of the stat (and I know that this is not an easy task and general).
Thganks and keep up the improvement of this already excellent smugmug
My page
Can you send me an email and I can respond? This AM I went back and looked at last month's stats and it is showing data for this gallery now. Yesterday it showed a blank page with just the note about stats being improved, etc...
Harry
http://www.smugmug.com/help/emailreal
Thanks.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I just need to vent my incredible frustration with this situation.
The last time I got a close to accurate reading on my statistics was at 5:00 AM yesterday morning. With great anticipation, I checked again this morning, but because it was a new month, I got zero readings and that used up my daily check.
I have had hits on my site, but won't know what galleries and what photos are being looked at until sometime tomorrow morning.
This might not be quite as frustrating if we had never been able to check stats throughout the day, but because it was something that we had that is now gone, and we have no idea when it might return, it is completely and totally frustrating.
Please give us some idea when this will be put back together.
Thank you.
I'll echo previous posters: of course your overall customer service and features are great, or I(we) wouldnt be using your service.
But one of the features you guys are selling is the built in, detailed traffic count, and you're selling it to professionals who use this for business.
So with all the communications you do, you could have sent something out so users don't panic the first time they see that a heavily trafficked gallery has no hits, as well as updates.
Also, this is just taking too long. I'm getting ready to produce prints for a show and I use the counter to help figure out what might sell...lot's of large image views...good. no views...bad...I'm sure you get it. We know you're trying hard, etc, but this isnt a free site.
I suggest that you offer your customers a partial credit for the time this vital part of the service is inoperative
thank you
As always, thank you for the service and attention you afford your site users. And please, if you can and when you can, fill us in on what has transpired and will transpire in the future concerning how SmugMug has, and in the future will, provide for an accounting of counts.
IN THE MEANTIME, I will continue to use Google Analytics, consider Stat Counter as well, but is there some other option out there, even at a cost, that others in the SmugMug world would attest to?
Well, thanks for listening, back to work! Time to shoot and post and report and text!!!!
Thanks,
Linda
www.MyPaperNow.com
(A Proud SmugMug User)
Getting frustrated,
Mary
www.mcdonegal1.com
Hi Mary, Your stats are updating: http://www.mcdonegal1.com/homepage/stats.mg once per day now. Thumbs aren't counted anymore but all sizes above (S, M, L, XL, X2, X3, O) are counted.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
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Good question, I'll try and find out, thanks.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Welcome to the party.:D
Harry
Thanks I noticed, several hrs after I posted some hits showed up. A little over 48hrs. Looking forward to the new features. I just hope its soon
First, the now: Stats are updated daily, once per day. Stats are being counted. We don't count -Ti and -Th views (the two thumbnail sizes) any more - this will give more meaningful and accurate photo view counts for all.
Second, the future: Once our Sorcerers have built and we've tested, a new user interface, we expect to return to more real-time and near real-time stats tracking. And we have some additional features in store for you as well. Many of you press us for dates of delivery on this - I'm sorry that I can't yet give that, but it's important to us as it is to you an we'll try to bring out these new stats features as soon as we possibly can.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Agreed. Think everybody needs to take a chill pill. The stats are not real time - will be back at some point.
I'd advise everybody to get statcounter.com in the meanwhile - I found it to be amazing for seeing how people are looking at the site and which photos are popular. Head and shoulders above google analytics.
Andy,
Having been thru a number of rollouts similar to this in my past, why wouldn't you run and debug these changes on a parallel system and roll them out live when they are ready? In the couple of years I have been with Smugmug, I can say this is very uncharacteristic of the level of support and service I have seen and received.
Let's hope this is a isolated blip and not a sign of things to come.
Jim
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I disagree with this statement. Seeing the ratio of thumbnails viewed to larger sizes viewed tells me if people were interested enough to click on the thumb to see larger versions. Not being able to see this ratio is MUCH LESS useful to me and makes the stats MUCH LESS meaningful.
Can you please explain how having less data is more meaningful to me?
-Scott
scwalter.smugmug.com
How/where would I place their code on my site? (Use small words; I'm at about square 1.2 when it comes to understanding code stuff.)
1. get an account on statcounter
2. they will give you a piece of code you have to add to your site
3. go to customize on smugmug / site-wide customization / find the section called Custom Footer
4. Paste the code there
just for your reference, this is what I pasted there myself (you have to get your own code since it references specific project number that i replaced with Xs)
<!-- Start of StatCounter Code -->
******** type="text/javascript">
var sc_project=XXXXXXX;
var sc_invisible=1;
var sc_partition=56;
var sc_click_stat=1;
var sc_security="14c9ea6c";
</********
******** type="text/javascript"
src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter.js"></********<noscript><div
class="statcounter"><a title="site stats"
href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img
class="statcounter"
src="http://c.statcounter.com/XXXXXXXX/0/14c9ea6c/1/"
alt="site stats" ></a></div></noscript>
<!-- End of StatCounter Code -->
here:
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092794
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092684
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
So, after all this, we learn there IS a change in how stats will be counted now versus then. I never did understand why the thumbnails on screen, in the SmugMug default view, for example, were counted along with the larger photo on the screen as well, but it was explained back then that this gave a more accurate count, because technically all photos, regardless of size, were being viewed on one screen together. Now, there is a different take on things; now, it's being described as NOT a more accurate count.
But even without counting these multiple hits as one, I am not confident at all that the counts are being accurately reported anyway. SOme of them just make no sense taking into consideration the types of events I'm covering and how they historically have been visited.
Whatever comes forth, I hope the "exciting new features" are worth it to you and to all the other SmugMuggers. As for me, I can't use them anyway; I can't show growth one way, then report it another way.
A bit more information up front as all this was unfolding would have been nice; all I really needed to know from the outset was whether counts then would be comparable to stats now. Obviously, this is an issue with others as well as even the more experienced SmugMuggers are starting to post as well.
Still a devoted SmugMugger,
Linda
www.MyPaperNow.com
Thanks omonra21 for the general advise & Andy for the tute link. The code is in my footer now and I'm looking forward to seeing the source of the continuing high interest in my Grand Canyon gallery.
I sent a Email to the help line 3/16/09 on asking when the stats was going to be up and running again. On 3/22/09 I received an Email from Steve (from “SmugMug Support Hero”) stating they “hope to have Stats back very soon!.” On 3/28/09 I sent another Email to Steve at help desk and he never answer me back on when he expects the stats to be updated. It has been 3 weeks now since the stats haven’t been updated and working real time. I understand website/stats changes take a long time if you run into difficulty. All I’m asking is when it will be up and running again (a firm date). I’m extremely frustrated since I have look at the stats on your website to determine when it is updated. I would also appreciate you telling me what these updates will include. I noticed that currently you don’t record the thumbnail stats any longer. Is there a reason why? I’m sure other SmugMug users would appreciate an answer to my question too. From a not very happy SmugMug user these days.
Arnold Dubin
http://www.dubinphotography.net/
http://www.dubinphotography.net/homepage/stats.mg
We put more info in our release notes,
http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/2009/04/03/new-terms-and-bug-fixes-march-2009/
and also in this thread, just above, see my posting here.
Thanks.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Arnold,
Same thing happened to me. I received 2 emails from the hero's at smugmug who are usually very helpful. I got the run around until this thread. Coming from over 20 years in support organizations it is totally foreign to me that you would :
- Without warning, removing a working feature
- when asked about when what you broke will be fixed, it is stated that "We don't give dates on new features". to me this is bogus because it is not a new feature I want, it is what was broke to be fixed.
- Told to "take a chill pill" and get stat counter which fills up in over a day with only 500 entries.
I am also very frustrated. While I hear stats are updated every day, I have confirmed galleries that were not updated for at least 48 hours. We continue to receive non-information when it comes to when this will be working again.
Harry
I'm sorry that the info has been a trickle. The reason this came about was that stats needed to be changed, in order to be scalable long term (we've 1/2 billion photos now!). Don fixed 'em up - and now they update 1x per day (or sooner) and we've got an engineer assigned to build a new stats UI so that you'll have more robust, more granular, and yes, more real-time, stats. And more that I can't say now.
It's coming. Soon.
Sorry for the hassle!
If you can tell me the gallery not updating in the last 48 hours, I'll check into it.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter