Best way to handle traffic stats.

[HeadPimp]

OK, here is another good question. What is the best way to handle tracking traffic across a large number of blogs on free hosts, your own hosting and on different servers.

Any suggestions on products? I would like to have one interface that I can sit back and look at them all from.

[nottslad]

When you say "traffic" do you mean the number of people hitting your blog or the number hitting your sponsors?

If the former then there is no easy way I know of when you're spread across different hosts and servers. You could add the same statcounter or Google analytics code to every site you make but it's not going to show you fluctuations in certain blogs very easily just total traffic.

If you're looking to track traffic to sponsors (which I think is a better way of tracking your overall business) then there are a few different programs:

Nifty Stats: relatively new and free, I've never tried this one
Unified Stats: free but didnt always work with all sponsors - undergone a revamp lately so maybe it's better now.
Stats Remote: I use this, it's $30 a month but widely regarded as the best.

[HeadPimp]

The actual surfers. Just seems like there should be a program that is structured like BlogOrganizer where you have one script on one domain that tracks the traffic at all your sites. That is essentially what all the free traffic counters do.

[mikesinner]

Originally Posted by HeadPimp

The actual surfers. Just seems like there should be a program that is structured like BlogOrganizer where you have one script on one domain that tracks the traffic at all your sites. That is essentially what all the free traffic counters do.

Would be to easy for anyone to see were your traffic is coming from and you don't want that

[zivko82]

Originally Posted by nottslad

If the former then there is no easy way I know of when you're spread across different hosts and servers. You could add the same statcounter or Google analytics code to every site you make but it's not going to show you fluctuations in certain blogs very easily just total trafficbest.

Do you try to put two counters? One for that blog only and another that you use for overall stats?

[kaz]

I've heard only good things from those using nifty stats, so that may be the way to go for checking your sponsor stats

[nottslad]

Originally Posted by zivko82

Do you try to put two counters? One for that blog only and another that you use for overall stats?

You could do that it would work, I don't though.

I normally use a different statcounter for each site so that I can quickly scan for any major fluctuations from a single page, and rely on server stats for deeper analysis.

I'm not really that interested in total traffic to all my sites, more concerned with spotting increases or decreases to individual sites and trying to analyse the reasons for that.

[HeadPimp]

Originally Posted by mikesinner

Would be to easy for anyone to see were your traffic is coming from and you don't want that

I was thinking something password protected.

[seeandsee]

statcounter for overall and custom php script that runs on your own server to track outgoing clicks from free hosted blogs could work ok.

[HeadPimp]

Originally Posted by nottslad

You could do that it would work, I don't though.

I normally use a different statcounter for each site so that I can quickly scan for any major fluctuations from a single page, and rely on server stats for deeper analysis.

I'm not really that interested in total traffic to all my sites, more concerned with spotting increases or decreases to individual sites and trying to analyse the reasons for that.

Exactly! I want to see if one blog is dropping off the face of the earth, but I want to be able to see them all from one page, and be able to dig in and get referral and SE stats too.

[zivko82]

I try to put one overall counter ( statcounter ) on few blogs tonight!