You guys... don't waste your time with smug stats!
Since I first tried the stats out on smugmug, I decided to switch over to google analytics. You'd be hard pressed to find a better way of tracking the activity on your photos. Here's a few reasons why...
Google Analytics shows you only actual traffic on your smugmug account. Images that are linked into and viewed on a blog elsewhere aren't counted. I've always disliked how my stats numbers in smugmug are inflated because of the traffic on my wordpress blog.
Not only do you see which photos and galleries are getting the most traffic for any given time period, but you can also see where they came from, whether it be from a referring website, a search engine, or directly.
For search engine traffic, you can see what keywords were used that landed users onto your smugmug pages.
You can see how long users browse, where they go in your pages, and even information about the users (OS, screen resolution, geographic region, ISP)
This is even something that smugmug encourages you to do. They've posted info on how to go about doing this and best of all it's free.
... and once you get your feet wet with it, there are even advanced techniques in the analytics help files that show you how to go about excluding your own traffic on smugmug.
It's not likely that smug stats will ever compare to what you get with google analytics. Urchin Software created the original system, and they used to sell it as a subscription based service for several hundred per month. Google bought them out back in 2005, integrated it into their own systems, made improvements to it, and now gives it away for free. Why not use it?
If they work reliably, Smugmug stats can show you some things that Google Analytics cannot. For example, GA can't see hits from externally linked images (e.g. your images linked from someone else's blog), but Smugmug stats can. Likewise, GA only tracks page hits, not necessarily image views. I think there are times when you may want the info from both.
Yes, those are good points. I guess for me, google analytics provides me with more of the information I'm interested in. I do use smug stats from time to time to see that information you've mentioned, and then I also have my wordpress stats which also give me related information on traffic between my wordpress account and my smugmug galleries. It would be nice to have one system that provided everything, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
I guess my problem with smug stats is that it does count views on images from all sources, internal or external, but it doesn't actually tell you anything about that (breakdown the traffic from various sources). The number of views alone doesn't really do much for me.
I haven't gotten used to it yet, but I did notice something just now that seemed wrong. I selected a gallery and today only and clicked on popular. It took a while to load. But when it finally appeared, it had loaded thumbs of all the pics in the gallery, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority had zero hits. Waste of computer resources and my time, IMO. Just load the ones that have activity.
OK, so I have spent a little more time with the new stats and I have another comment.
The navigation needs some serious work. Context is not maintained more often than not--sort order, date selection, gallery focus--when you reload a page and even when you switch from tab to tab. More often than not, I feel like I have to start over when I want to drill down. Not intuitive.
OK, so I have spent a little more time with the new stats and I have another comment.
The navigation needs some serious work. Context is not maintained more often than not--sort order, date selection, gallery focus--when you reload a page and even when you switch from tab to tab. More often than not, I feel like I have to start over when I want to drill down. Not intuitive.
It's flash-based and I have yet to see a well designed flash application that doesn't have some form of significant navigation issues. I still don't understand why flash is needed in this instance.
ETA: Stats aren't really all that important to me, but it's fun to follow and understand what people are looking at. The new stats pages are still more a conference-room pilot for me. Not even to Beta. Looking forward to improvements.
This isn't updating for me any more. I've logged in and out and cleared cache. It hasn't moved for the last week despite having many hits as shown on the graphs. FWIW, I'll put my vote in for keeping the old stats in place along side the new version. Sometimes "Cheap and Cheerful" beats "Powerful".
This isn't updating for me any more. I've logged in and out and cleared cache. It hasn't moved for the last week despite having many hits as shown on the graphs. FWIW, I'll put my vote in for keeping the old stats in place along side the new version. Sometimes "Cheap and Cheerful" beats "Powerful".
Mine hasn't moved since last week either Jenn and that's what I check, not the new fancy dancy stats.
The use of a camera is similar to that of a knife. You can use it to peel potatoes, or carve a flute. ~ E. Kahlmeyer
... I'm still peeling potatoes.
Mine haven't changed either, on logging into my account from either my home or my work PC. I talked through a new gallery with my sister on Saturday so I know for a fact that she has seen certain images and the stats are yet to pick that up. Nor are they picking up the images I linked to in various forums last week when I know they have been viewed many times over.
Please just give us the old stats back until this works (and even after it works)
You guys... don't waste your time with smug stats!
Since I first tried the stats out on smugmug, I decided to switch over to google analytics. You'd be hard pressed to find a better way of tracking the activity on your photos. Here's a few reasons why...
Time to fix the stats problems you've created!
You say you are closely watching this thread, but you should also be monitoring the comments page about your stats. You have plenty of feedback now to address all the new problems with the stats page. It seems like the comments are getting worse as more people try to use the new stats, so it's time to repair the issues. Thanks
You say you are closely watching this thread, but you should also be monitoring the comments page about your stats. You have plenty of feedback now to address all the new problems with the stats page. It seems like the comments are getting worse as more people try to use the new stats, so it's time to repair the issues. Thanks
Hi, we have a bug, we're fixing it - and they should go out with this week's release. Sorry for the hassle.
When the old data was taken down, I was taken right to the new Total Views screen. My first, instinctual action was to click on today's date. Nothing. Clicked on today's number of photos. Nothing. Clicked on today's data point on the graph. Nothing. I found myself looking for information about what happened today and it wasn't there.
A lot of commenters have raised the issue of easily seeing what attracted viewer's attention day by day. I'm not sure any one of the great folks from SmugMug has responded to this particular topic - regardless of whether they can or will add back this capability.
Think I figured out how to see daily activity without having to dive into each gallery photo by photo, but the function seems buggy. Given that it appears simple enuf, not sure why someone didn't explain it when several commenter raised the question of how to do it.
Goto Popularity Tab and select Today or Yesterday on the upper right or select a date range on the upper left. You'll get a list of galleries. You then select a specific gallery to see the # of views for all its photos for the single date or date range you selected.
Three problems with Popular Galleries tab:
1) The sum of the Total Views for each Gallery listed when you select a single day using the date range feature in the upper left (or choose Today or Yesterday in the upper right) don't equate with the number of total views reported on the main Total Views tab. Am I misunderstanding how it works?
2). When you select a specific gallery from the popular list, muck around, and hit Back to Popular Galleries to return to the entire list, you get the popular galleries list (as expected) with the previously selected gallery identified above the list (not expected). All subsequent choices (such as a new date range) act only on this previously selected gallery. Seems that actions taken with the full list of popular galleries on screen should affect the full list. Actions taken after selecting a specific gallery should affect the selected gallery.
3). There's a minor oddity with how a single date is displayed in the upper left. Choosing Today or Yesterday from the upper right causes Displaying [single date] to be shown in the upper left. Trying to select a single date by using the date range calendars (viewable by clicking on the date(s) in the upper left as instructed by a pop up balloon) and selecting the same day for start and end date does nothing. Selecting the day you want as the start date and the following day as the end date generates data for the start date. Oddly, the upper left doesn't display the date you were trying to find, but displays a date range using the two dates you were forced to have to select. Using the date range calendars, why can't you click start & end on the date you want in order to get a single day's results along with the single date displayed?
Would still like to have daily activity be selectable by clicking on the date or graph point on Total Views tab. Would be simple and intuitive.
Comments
Homepage • Popular
JFriend's javascript customizations • Secrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
Always include a link to your site when posting a question
I guess my problem with smug stats is that it does count views on images from all sources, internal or external, but it doesn't actually tell you anything about that (breakdown the traffic from various sources). The number of views alone doesn't really do much for me.
OK, so I have spent a little more time with the new stats and I have another comment.
The navigation needs some serious work. Context is not maintained more often than not--sort order, date selection, gallery focus--when you reload a page and even when you switch from tab to tab. More often than not, I feel like I have to start over when I want to drill down. Not intuitive.
It's flash-based and I have yet to see a well designed flash application that doesn't have some form of significant navigation issues. I still don't understand why flash is needed in this instance.
ETA: Stats aren't really all that important to me, but it's fun to follow and understand what people are looking at. The new stats pages are still more a conference-room pilot for me. Not even to Beta. Looking forward to improvements.
This isn't updating for me any more. I've logged in and out and cleared cache. It hasn't moved for the last week despite having many hits as shown on the graphs. FWIW, I'll put my vote in for keeping the old stats in place along side the new version. Sometimes "Cheap and Cheerful" beats "Powerful".
Mine hasn't moved since last week either Jenn and that's what I check, not the new fancy dancy stats.
... I'm still peeling potatoes.
patti hinton photography
Please just give us the old stats back until this works (and even after it works)
If you're on a pro account...
Bugs
Spiders
Flowers
You say you are closely watching this thread, but you should also be monitoring the comments page about your stats. You have plenty of feedback now to address all the new problems with the stats page. It seems like the comments are getting worse as more people try to use the new stats, so it's time to repair the issues. Thanks
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=163861#4
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Think I figured out how to see daily activity without having to dive into each gallery photo by photo, but the function seems buggy. Given that it appears simple enuf, not sure why someone didn't explain it when several commenter raised the question of how to do it.
Goto Popularity Tab and select Today or Yesterday on the upper right or select a date range on the upper left. You'll get a list of galleries. You then select a specific gallery to see the # of views for all its photos for the single date or date range you selected.
Three problems with Popular Galleries tab:
1) The sum of the Total Views for each Gallery listed when you select a single day using the date range feature in the upper left (or choose Today or Yesterday in the upper right) don't equate with the number of total views reported on the main Total Views tab. Am I misunderstanding how it works?
2). When you select a specific gallery from the popular list, muck around, and hit Back to Popular Galleries to return to the entire list, you get the popular galleries list (as expected) with the previously selected gallery identified above the list (not expected). All subsequent choices (such as a new date range) act only on this previously selected gallery. Seems that actions taken with the full list of popular galleries on screen should affect the full list. Actions taken after selecting a specific gallery should affect the selected gallery.
3). There's a minor oddity with how a single date is displayed in the upper left. Choosing Today or Yesterday from the upper right causes Displaying [single date] to be shown in the upper left. Trying to select a single date by using the date range calendars (viewable by clicking on the date(s) in the upper left as instructed by a pop up balloon) and selecting the same day for start and end date does nothing. Selecting the day you want as the start date and the following day as the end date generates data for the start date. Oddly, the upper left doesn't display the date you were trying to find, but displays a date range using the two dates you were forced to have to select. Using the date range calendars, why can't you click start & end on the date you want in order to get a single day's results along with the single date displayed?
Would still like to have daily activity be selectable by clicking on the date or graph point on Total Views tab. Would be simple and intuitive.
Thanks
Rick
Washington DC: Where taxation without representation thrives.
It's been another 5 months, is this still on the radar? This has been a problem since the original beta of the new stats.
Thanks for your note. We apologize for the delay in getting back to you. We are currently evaluating ways to fix this. More soon!
Best,
Frederique
While you're looking into that can you check on the speed too?
My stats (not exactly huge BTW) have been getting progressively worse, loading the "Popularity" page can take over a minute.