Skip to main content

Stats Pageview Counts Fluctuate Daily, Not At Midnight

One of the many controversial issues about Stats involves the daily pageview counts, which are reset daily.

Most blog owners accept the daily count reset, in principle - they just don't understand why the counts should be reset during their day, instead of at midnight.
My pageview count goes up during the day - but in the afternoon, it goes to zero, then starts over again. Why is Stats so unreliable?

The pageview count reset would be better understood, were it to happen daily, at midnight, for each blog owner. Unfortunately, there are over 24 different time zones, worldwide - and Blogger blogs are surely owned by some persons, in each of the time zones represented.

There are 24 time zones which roughly follow longitudinal lines - plus specific countries which have their own national clocks. WikiPedia identifies a total of 40 time zones.

Some countries span multiple time zones, adding to the 24 longitudinal zones.

Some countries span and divide into multiple time zones, others span multiple time zones and use one time zone. India, for instance, spans 3 time zones, geographically - but observes one time zone, offset by 30 minutes, as "GMT+5.5".

Most people observe a twice yearly 1 hour clock shift.

Many countries observe a seasonal variation, "Daylight Savings Time", when they shift local clocks ahead or behind, by an hour. DST beginning and ending dates vary by country, irregularly.

Also, countries south of the equator start summer, when countries north of the equator start winter. People south of the equator move their clocks forward, when people north of the equator are moving theirs backwards. If you ever try to communicate with somebody in Australia, from the USA, you'll notice how much relative fluctuation this causes, during a year.

To reset Stats at midnight for everybody, there would be pandemonium.

If the daily Stats pageview count reset were to be scheduled according to the local clock of the blog owner (which would be impossible, for multi owner blogs), there would have to be as many reset process schedules as there are countries / time zones. Additionally, twice a year, most reset schedules would be shifted, according to the local DST offset.

The only practical solution is to reset at the same time, worldwide.

Considering the almost inestimable number of rules required to schedule a local midnight count reset for all Blogger blogs, during the entire year, I suspect that the only practical design involves scheduling the reset, for all blogs, at midnight GMT. This means that no blog owners will see their pageview counts reset at midnight, during the entire year.

Everybody simply has to accept their count being reset sometime during their day - with the reset time varying according to the twice a year local clock shift.



Some #Blogger blog owners claim that Stats daily totals seem to go up, and down, during the day. They do not understand why Stats counts are reset during their day, instead of at midnight their time.

Comments

Thank you. This was very helpful.
kimotecontrol said…
thanks! This post was very helpful.

Popular posts from this blog

Adding A Link To Your Blog Post

Occasionally, you see a very odd, cryptic complaint I just added a link in my blog, but the link vanished! No, it wasn't your imagination.

Embedded Comments And Main Page View

The option to display comments, embedded below the post, was made a blog option relatively recently. This was a long requested feature - and many bloggers added it to their blogs, as soon as the option was presented to us. Some blog owners like this feature so much, that they request it to be visible when the blog is opened, in main page view. I would like all comments, and the comment form, to be shown underneath the relevant post, automatically, for everyone to read without clicking on the number of comments link. And this is not how embedded comments work.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".