Statcounter Mismatch

echesakechesak Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
edited August 28, 2013 in SmugMug Support
I use Statcounter to count the number of page loads on my site. I've been following it, since installing it. But since I unveiled my new Smugmug site, the Statcounter value and Smugmug values have been drastically different.

For example. I went public on 8/13. But so far this month, it appears that my Statcounter is about 1/3 the pageloads of my Smugmug value. For the month, I've had more than 16K page loads (according to Smugmug) and only about 6500 for Statcounter.

I've contacted Support at Statcounter, but the say that everything is working OK. They asked if I published my site, around the 12th, as they saw some sort of hit-variation at that point. But other than that, they are at a loss to explain the discrepancy.

Anyone have this problem? Anyone have any ideas what might be causing this, or how to correct it. It's clearly something to do with my new site, as the legacy site followed Statcounter's values very well.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Eric

Comments

  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited August 23, 2013
    Have you entered your IP address so your hits do not register?
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  • MantaManta Registered Users Posts: 17 Big grins
    edited August 23, 2013
    Same Here
    I joined SM a year ago and have always seen higher counts on SM stats. I always assumed they were the SM " Browse Photos" results not showing in Statcounter.
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,972 moderator
    edited August 23, 2013
    I think this might be in part because StatCounter only registers gallery page loads, while SM can count all images. I don't think that slideshows or navigating within the lightbox count as page loads for StatCounter. ne_nau.gif
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  • MantaManta Registered Users Posts: 17 Big grins
    edited August 23, 2013
    Richard wrote: »
    I think this might be in part because StatCounter only registers gallery page loads, while SM can count all images. I don't think that slideshows or navigating within the lightbox count as page loads for StatCounter. ne_nau.gif

    That's not the case for me-Statcounter seems to include all image hits if clicked on inside a gallery. So I can see a particular visitor viewed 4 individual images, for example. Where I see differences are for visitors viewing images in OTHER galleries not shown by Statcounter as visited. Usually there are only 1 or 2 images viewed per the SM Stats which is why I was concluding they were SM only browses. But that's just been a guess as I've never seen it addressed before in the forums or by SM.
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,972 moderator
    edited August 24, 2013
    I was incorrect about navigation using the lightbox--Statcounter does pick it up. Sorry about that. Slideshow images do not appear to be counted, though. Another source of inconsistency between Statcounter and SM are images that are externally linked. SM will count them, Statcounter will not, as all SM is serving is the image, not the page that contains the Statcounter script. Hope this helps.

    Edit: Note that I've been talking about Statcounter on a legacy site only. I have no idea how the new implementation works.
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  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited August 25, 2013
    echesak wrote: »
    I use Statcounter to count the number of page loads on my site. I've been following it, since installing it. But since I unveiled my new Smugmug site, the Statcounter value and Smugmug values have been drastically different.

    For example. I went public on 8/13. But so far this month, it appears that my Statcounter is about 1/3 the pageloads of my Smugmug value. For the month, I've had more than 16K page loads (according to Smugmug) and only about 6500 for Statcounter.

    I've contacted Support at Statcounter, but the say that everything is working OK. They asked if I published my site, around the 12th, as they saw some sort of hit-variation at that point. But other than that, they are at a loss to explain the discrepancy.

    Anyone have this problem? Anyone have any ideas what might be causing this, or how to correct it. It's clearly something to do with my new site, as the legacy site followed Statcounter's values very well.

    Any assistance would be appreciated.

    Eric
    Smugmug's support for StatCounter in the new Smugmug design only went live on 8/19. If you are using the new Smugmug design, I don't think it could have been counting since you went public on 8/13. Also, have you entered your StatCounter code into the SM preferences because that's the only way that StatCounter works at all in the new SM design.
    --John
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  • echesakechesak Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
    edited August 28, 2013
    jfriend wrote: »
    Smugmug's support for StatCounter in the new Smugmug design only went live on 8/19. If you are using the new Smugmug design, I don't think it could have been counting since you went public on 8/13. Also, have you entered your StatCounter code into the SM preferences because that's the only way that StatCounter works at all in the new SM design.


    When I prepared my new SM site, I did obtain new code from Statcounter and entered it into my "All pages" location. I wasn't aware that there was any interface between Smugmug and Statcounter, except for the code that I entered. I'll update the Statcounter count and watch if the count follows more accurately (after 8/19). I was just a little surprised at the drastic difference.

    Thanks for the info, folks...

    Eric
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited August 28, 2013
    StatCounter and Smugmug image stats measure completely different things. Get used to it. They're designed differently. There's nothing "wrong" with either one - they are what they were designed to be. You need to know what you're trying to measure and use the data (from the most appropriate source) that best measures what you're trying to measure.

    Smugmug reports how many times an image has been requested from their servers. That means any image in a collage or slideshow counts and every image on a given page that is displayed counts separately. Multiple requests of the same image by the same browser may or may not actually count because of browser caching (which can avoid requesting the image from the server again).

    StatCounter reports page views, one count per web page displayed. StatCounter has no ability to report individual image views because that data is only known on Smugmug's actual servers.

    These two measures would only be similar if you had a page with exactly one image on it and that image was never displayed anywhere else. Then the hits for that image would be the same as the hits for that page.

    Page views and image views are completely different things. You must decide which piece of data better corresponds to what you're trying to measure or understand and use that data source.
    --John
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