I installed SiteMeter today, because I want to do BlogHer AdSense (Please don't hate me! Still come read me!) and you can't register for it without submitting how much traffic your site gets each month. And I, uh, I currently have NO IDEA how much traffic I get. So that's why the SiteMeter. But, what I realized I still don't know, now that I've already installed it, is whether SiteMeter just tracks actual visits to my website, or also tracks each time one of my posts gets read in someone's Google reader, or whatever reader they use.
I bet most of YOU know the answer to this. Help me out?
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I don't understand SiteMeter, either. I recommend getting Google Analytics, which I ALSO don't understand but at least gives me A Number that I can report to BlogHer.
Oh, and my impression was that the site/analysis programs couldn't track it if someone read it in an email, which is why people do partial feeds (BECAUSE WHY ELSE WOULD THEY DO IT OMG SO ANNOYING).
Um, I meant "in a reader." I don't know why I wrote "in an email," except that a child was talking to me and also I wanted to leave THREE COMMENTS before anyone else had left any. Goal.accomplished.
I use statcounter.com, which I think is great and gives a better daily or weekly picture of it all, with graphs and stuff, whereas I think Google Analytics is a little more difficult especially is finding how people are coming to you. I never got sitemeter to even work, though, so you should probably take any of my comments with a grain of salt, anyway. I'm no expert, and perhaps I'm totally wrong, but my impression was that all of these things track visits to the actual website. There's no way I know of to actually track people seeing it in their feed reader, but you can look up how many people do (whether they're actually 'reading' it or not, though, who knows?) Enter your blog's name into the "Add a Subscription" search bar on google reader and it will give you a list to choose from, and underneath it will tell you how many people are currently subscribed to get your blog into their feed reader. (Don't enter the whole URL though, or else it will just automatically subscribe you. You want to somehow get to the Did You Mean? list of blogs close to your search terms.) You can similarly look up your blog on bloglines and it will tell you (somewhere...) how many people are reading you on there. There's also a "Followers" tab on Blogger, either as a widget in the sidebar or listed in your Dashboard. (I think) those people are the ones who have signed up to get your blog posts emailed directly to them.
So if you add it all up, that's the total picture, I guess?
I'm guessing that it only tracks people who read on your site. I don't think there would be any way it *could* track that. I, however, am no expert.
You can see how many people subscribe you through google reader, by subscribing to yourself and then clicking "show details" in the upper right hand side.
Also, I believe that my blog only allows partial view in google reader and I have NO IDEA WHY OR HOW this happened. I don't run adds, so obv. it's not for that reason.
(I would run ads, though, if I ever get around to it. Not against it in the least.)
Oh, also, when I first got ads, I didn't know how many readers I had and I think I just wrote "I don't know" in the box that asked. Then I updated that info later when I did know.
I have both SiteMeter and Google Analytics, but I hardly check GA. Though I do think it probably provides more info which is why I haven't uninstalled it. And yeah, no, only page views on your blog, not views in a feed reader or anywhere else.
I have no idea how any of this works, but you can add one to the last number you got...from me! :) (very technical, eh?)
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