The Real Blogger Status

One interesting feature of Blogger, now removed, was the Google+ Share counter. Similar to the FaceBook "Like" counter, many people used to enjoy watching the Share counter increase, for a given blog or post. I, personally, used to share my blog posts to Google+ - then watch happily, as the numbers climbed. The Share counter is no more a part of Blogger.

Ever since 2009, when Blogger introduced the Stats visitor activity counter , blog owners have been reporting inconsistencies between Stats and other visitor activity counters . Recently, Google+ changed their +1 counter. Now, we wait for Blogger Engineering to update their +1 per post display counters, which use the +1 counts from Google+. Blog owners continue to report various Stats inaccuracies - such as discrepancies between Stats pageview counts, and the various social sharing counters. They fail to observe the functional differences between the various activity counters - and similarly, between Stats counts and social sharing metrics, such as Google+ +1 counts.

One of the least understood Blogger features is the Stats visitor counters , and the various displays. We see the confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , periodically. The "weekly" Stats numbers don't add up, properly! or Why is "Popular Posts" so out of touch, with reality? Magic is fun to watch, when it's just for amusement. When your numbers seem to have magical quality - changing from day to day, or display to display - it becomes annoying.

We see an occasional question about search indexing, and visitor activity, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I find out what search queries are used, to bring my new readers, to my blog? This owner is thinking about how to get more traffic - the right way. You can use the Stats - Traffic sources dashboard page, and examine the top 10 Search Keywords, used to find your blog. Depending upon how large and popular your blog is - and what browser your readers use - you may or may not find out as much as you would think, however.

The Stats "Don't track ..." option continues to draw complaints. Various blog owners have recently complained, anew, that the previously reported low level problem is now affecting their blogs. The two problems, though having a common primary symptom, appear to have different victim populations. The previous problem seemed to primarily affect custom domain published blogs, this problem may be BlogSpot only. This problem, according to a majority of the blog owners reporting, appears to have started during the last two to three weeks. It may be wise, therefore, to treat this as a new problem.

Just as with a single owner blog, one would not want to count owner activity in Stats - with a team blog, one may not want to count team activity. Authors, like Administrators, need to use the option "Don't track my pageviews", to avoid Stats recording their activity as a visitor. Unfortunately, the "Don't track ..." setting wizard is part of the Stats dashboard page - and is accessible only to blog administrators.

We see signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about Stats count adjustments. The number of page views for individual posts and total page views have dropped precipitously. It appears that Google is under reporting these page views, which of course results in less earnings for our website. This blog owner does not understand the effect of referer spam upon Stats - nor the separation of AdSense and Stats. Some blog owners think that they know what pageview counts are appropriate, for their blog - and are unhappy when Stats does not display counts that agree with their expectations.

Many people have multiple computers. That detail is becoming more and more normal, in the population in general, each year. I own 3 computers - actually, 5 (two of them run Windows XP, and are off line). So, I use my 3 computers - 2 Google ChromeBooks, and 1 smart phone (no, not a Nexus), for Blogger and other projects. Since I don't want Stats pageview counts, for this blog, affected by my browsing this blog, I logged in to Blogger as the owner, using the browser on each of my 3 computers - and selected the "Don't track your own pageviews" option. The "Don't track ..." option is set, in a cookie. Cookies are unique, to the browser where they are set. On a ChromeBook, with only 1 browser - Chrome - this detail is not so interesting. One computer - 1 browser - 1 user - 1 cookie.

One popular Stats related accessory, which displays pageview information to the public, is the "Popular Posts" gadget. Popular Posts identifies from 1 to 10 of the most popular posts in the blog, by comparing Stats pageview counts. Optional parts of the display of each post are a snippet of text, and an ever popular thumbnail photo. Like many Stats features, blog owners have found imaginative uses for "Popular Posts" - and overlook the limitations of the gadget. Both the dynamic nature of Stats, and the timing of the various pageview count recalculations, create confusion, when Popular Posts is examined.

Some blog owners want significant details, from Stats. How do I get all posts listed, with pageview counts? or How do I get a specific time period, from last month? or How do I filter out the bogus counts? Not everybody observes that Stats gives us specific details, based upon what's generally useful, or what is possible to keep, easily. Some details are not provided, because Stats provides details that are significant, in the right context. Other details are not provided, because they are not retained, from day to day (week to week, month to month, or year to year).

Some blog owners, having published their blog to their new custom domain, find that the Stats "Don't track my own pageviews" option has now stopped working - and their activity, on their blog, is being counted. Owners of custom domain published blogs, who consider their own activity to create significant inaccuracy in Stats figures, may not be pleased to discover Stats unable to ignore their activity - even if they did previously select the "Don't track ..." option. Finding it inconvenient to locate the misbehaving filter that prevents the Stats "Don't track" cookie from being installed on their browser, they will complain in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . We now see a possible workaround, for this problem.

Some blog owners like to validate their Stats displays, using third party visitor logs like StatCounter. Since Stats displays aggregated page view counts - not individual visitors - a blog owner will find many discrepancies between Stats and StatCounter. One observation might involve Stats indicating periods of no activity, where StatCounter shows an interesting visit. A visit, registered by StatCounter - but not by Stats - indicates an apparent problem with Stats. Or, so the blog owner might think.

Occasionally, we see odd questions about Stats, and the history of someone's blog (or maybe, the URL of someone's blog), in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . If I started my blog last year, why does my Stats display show pageviews from 2, or even 3, years ago? and If I rename my blog to a better URL, how do I carry the Stats numbers to the new URL? Neither blog owner shows an accurate understanding of the historical nature of Stats pageview counts.

Some blog owners don't understand why Stats displays show that no one is reading their latest post. I know that my most recent post is being read - but Stats shows pageviews, for that post, as 0! This owner does not understand the difference between main page, and post page, access. If you read this blog , without being interested in any particular post, you can access the main page. On the main page, and other index pages, you'll see anywhere from 10 to 15 carefully summarised , recently published, individual posts. Clicking on "Read more »", at the end of any of the summaries, you can read any complete article. This complete article, and others in this blog, is published as an individual post page - and summarised on index pages, using Jump Break. Not every blog owner uses Jump Break , to display the posts. Some blog owners publish complete blog articles, in each index page post. Depending upon how any blog is designed, some readers may click on a link, to ...

Confusion about Stats, and referer spam inaccuracy , is expressed, weekly. You never have a real idea as to how many real visitors view your blog, since these referrer spammers are in fact identified by their name, and their number of visits on the Stats "referring URL" list. Referer spam inaccuracy is possibly the best known - but certainly not the only - Stats problem, discussed daily in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Stats is a controversial Blogger feature, because of various perceived inaccuracies - but even so, is more useful than competing products , because of its unique design. Not every blog owner realises that all visitor logs / meters provide displays and statistics, which contain known inaccuracies. The fact is, no visitor log / meter can ever be 100% accurate.

Too many blog owners do not understand the unique capability of Stats - nor do they understand its limitations. We see the periodic question in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . How do I find out how many actual people are viewing my blog? Stats does not provide unique visitor counts - Stats provides pageview counts.

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.

Some owners of newer Blogger blogs spend time reading their Stats logs, and worry that their "All time" pageview counts don't always go up - they go down, too. Why do the counts go down? Is there one number, that I can believe? They don't understand that with Stats, you need to look for trends - not absolute readings. In the beginning, fluctuations are more obvious, and trends are less obvious. Thanks to the referer spam war , and to normal visitor activity , even the "All time" numbers will go up and down - for newer blogs, which have less genuine and constant visitor traffic. And the constant rise and fall is scary - until you get used to it.

One sign of panic, seen regularly in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , comes from people who spend a lot of time viewing their Stats logs. My pageview counts are always going up and down. Why is Stats so flaky? It's good to monitor your reader activity - sometimes this will warn you of a major problem in the Internet, or with Blogger. But keep a proper perspective .

Not all blog owners realise how unique Blogger Stats is, in its design. Some owners may idly suggest that Stats can easily be replaced by any third party visitor activity log / meter. Why bother to use Stats? Since Blogger Stats shows referrer spam, it's pretty useless - just use SiteMeter, StatCounter - or Google Analytics. They have no idea why Stats was designed as it is, nor what information Stats provides, that no competing product can possibly provide.