Website owners, mostly bloggers and people that run E-commerce websites use web traffic statistics application to monitor how well or bad their websites are doing in terms of traffic and reach. There are many web traffic statistics applications that are freely available on the web. Most of these applications are very similar in terms of the general functionality but different when it comes to the reporting style and the installation of the tracking script. Below are some of the most popular such applications.
Stats Counter
Stat Counter is one of the most widely used among bloggers mainly because it is very easy to set up and install the tracking code, especially on word press, which is the content management system most commonly used by bloggers. It gives real time statistics of your web traffic. As much as the application is free for average users, you will need to pay if your traffics exceed 1,500,000 page views in a month. In wordpress, stat counter can be used by self hosted and non self hosted users.
Google Analytics
This is perhaps the most famous web traffic application. It is free and has a lot of functionality. Google Analytics gives very accurate statistics on not only traffics but also keep track of almost everything a cookie can store on each unique visitor. It is also used to keep track of Google Adwords performance. It is also very good in terms user friendliness and navigation.
AWStats
AWStats is one of the applications that do not require client side script installation. It is installed on the server side and provides comprehensive logs of traffics accessing particular websites. It is free but can not just simply be installed by the average users. To install, it requires full access rights to the hosting server. If you do not run your own server, you will need to request your web host to install it.
Performancing Metrics
Performancing gives you real time readings of your web traffics however if you want to use it for free for long run, your pageviews/day must not exceed 1000. Upon sign up, Performancing gives you 21days full premium access, after that you will have to pay ($2/month) to continue.
Automatic Statistics for Word Press
Automatic Statistics calculates your traffic within Word Press. However Automatic Statistics resides on WordPress.com’s Dashboard.
Feed Burner
Feed burner is different from the rest because it keeps track of traffic coming from feed readers. Feed burner users can show off how many people are currently subscribing to them by displaying a widget on their websites. Feed burner’s FAN is also the only traffic counter that offers publishers to make a profit from their traffic.
Site Meter
Site Meter is another very popular traffic tracking provider. Like Stats Counter, it has two different charges of services; the free and the paid premium. Free services get all basic statistics a webmaster could possibly need but in case you want more comprehensive analysis on your traffics, you will need to get the premium account.
Go Stats
Go Stats provides not only the normal stats we want to see, it also comes with a prediction figure. Go stats also has a tab navigation whereby a user can navigate from text view to graphic view.
Spotplex
Spotplex shows you not only real time traffic stats, but also how you rank among bloggers of your niche that use Spotplex plugin.
CrazyEgg
Crazy Egg tells you where in your page people are likely to click and the most interesting part is, it gives you a heat map display.
Generally, there is no need to install too many of these applications because that tends to slow down the site and may cause inaccuracy in overall results. In most cases, there is no much difference between the reports generated. It’s better to stick with one or two that matches your requirements the most.