Web statistic tools or site counters as they are commonly referred are very useful to track and analyze a web site's or blog's performance. In recent years these statistic tools have undergone many improvements and additions. Unfortunately with the increased complexity and competition among tool developers, site traffic counters now tend to offer different levels of service. So today you have to use more than one site counter to get all the benefits and information web traffic analysis has to offer.I see the following 3 kinds of site counters dominating the current site counter market. And I think it is essential for every website and blog to have the first two kinds of site counters.
1. Real time site counters
This kind of site counters provide real time summaries about the site traffic and detailed information about visitors. Real time summary allows you to get the up to date total number of visitors and page views for a site at any time. Detail information about visitors gives you visitor details like IP address, visit time and location, number of page views, visit length, their referrer and their entry page and exit page. In addition these kind of tools may provide you with summary information for previous days and months and traffic predictions. With my experience here at Planet Apex, I find Site Meter to be the best real time site traffic counter. They also allow you to display the total number of visitors in the website.
2. Long term traffic analyzers
This is the best kind of site counter and web statistic tool. Lorn term traffic analyzers allow you to perform detailed traffic analysis and produce many different kinds of traffic reports. They are essential for websites with heavy traffic as well as useful to perform long term traffic analysis in any website. You can get all sorts of information you wish for, like site traffic charts and graphs, the sites performance in a search engine over a given time period, geo location maps, visits and page views for the last weeks etc. But unlike real time site counters these stat tools update only on a daily basis and don't allow you to display details in the website for visitors. Google analytics is the best and most widely used long term statistic tool.
3. Ornamental site counters
These kind of site counters only give details like the total number of visitors and their location in a world map or as a list. But they make sites more attractive and can enhance your visitors experience. Their primary purpose is to graphically portray the site's traffic details to visitors. Cluster Maps (the one I'm using in my sidebar) is an example of an ornamental site counter. NeoWorks is another one that has become very popular in recent times due to its cool display formats.
I used these 3 kinds of statistics here on Planet Apex which is a free Blogspot Blog and have really benefited from what each have to offer.
