I installed Google Analytics last week because MapStats had crashed, though it’s back up now. I liked MapStats because it gave me data about individual visitors, such as where they came from and what search term they used. I could look at individuals and what brought them here. Google Analytics looks more at trends and overall activity and the available tools make it obvious that it’s about monetizing your site or tracking ad campaigns, which are of no interest to me.
I think it’s good to have an idea about where visitors come from, what brings them here and what’s of interest. Yesterday my WordPress dashboard showed that most new links to this site were in languages other than English. For me, that indicates that I should at least update the French section on this blog.
Of course, all of these are data points that can be interpreted in many ways so I don’t get too hung up with my stats. What’s more important is that I understand how these systems work so that I can help others.
Hi Harold
I use multiple trackers on my blog. Like you mention, Google Analytics provides trends. It does provide a good report on search keywords but doesn’t give individual visitor data. I also use StatCounter (http://www.statcounter.com/). This provides individual visitor data and hasn’t crashed on me so far. I like the MyBlogLog’s Came from and Offsite clicks data. A free account membership provides data only for last 7 days. Interestingly Feedburner also provides visitor data. I like the fact that this provides a summary of visitors from each domain. This also provides what users clicked. MyBlogLog and Feedburner though don’t provide individual visitor data that way StatCounter does.
Thanks for the additional info, Manish.