Hi, Iam little confused which one to choose. Google analytics or statcounter? Also is there any better than 2 of these? let me know. Regards.
I am using both of them for one of my site. So you cud use both. But i wud say Analytics is far better than Stat Counter because with the help you cud do deep analysis of traffic coming to ur site.........................
Well what I am happy about google analytics is the bounce rate feature that they have. But in monitoring my site traffic at real time I am using statcounter and just lately I am happy using Histats Will you can always use them together anyway
I think Google Analytics tracking is not instant.. the stats will update once a day. Personally, I'm using Histats which is excellent.
for real time you could just use a php code in your pages. <?php $ref = getenv("HTTP_REFERER"); // site the visitor is coming from before they leave to come to your site $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; // the IP of the visitor $today = date("F j, Y, g:i a"); // the date, time the visitor arrives at your site $stats = $today . "Page Name ------------" . $ip . "------------ " . $ref . "\r\n"; // write it to a txt file $myFile = "RealtimeStats/RealTimeStats.txt"; $fh = fopen($myFile, 'a') or die("can't open file"); // append the file it auto updates $stringData =$stats; fwrite($fh, $stringData); fclose($fh); ?> Make a folder and .txt file called RealTimeStats. (or whatever you want - but change it above) That way you can track in real time , you can see the date/time - the page visited - the site the visitor came from etc. (if you want to know what browser they're using you could add that and any other info you wanted to see if you wanted) That way you can open the RealTimeStats.txt file on your server and keep it open and just refresh the page to watch it in real-time.
Google analytics provides you with good information about you site; traffic, keyword, etc. They are more advanced. But currently, I use statcounter. It is easy to use and it can also provide great statistic about the site.
As said above statcounter is easy to use and novice user can understand easily.But no bounce rate provided. GA has plethora of tools which are more advanced to use.
If you need to easily integrate with an Adwords campaign, GA is the best bet. If you want live stats, Woopra is really amazing. Takes a few weeks to get approved, but it is worth the wait. You could always use both...