After blogging for more than three years, I did something today for the first time: paid for a statistics package.
Yup, I plunked down $3.95 to use Performancing Metrics for the next month. Not the biggest investment dollar-wise but a radical move given you can satisfy your stats-obsession with free packages such as WordPress’ Stats, AwStats and Google Analytics.
So why pay $3.95 if you can pay nothing? Good question. What I like about Performancing Metrics is the user-friendly interface, which makes it easy to see how your blogs are performing. In many ways, it reminds me of BlogBeat, which I really liked until it disappeared after being acquired by FeedBurner. I also like that you can track several blogs under a single package – provided you don’t exceed the page view limit for each package.
The only thing that I found disconcerting about PM was whether it was different from Clicky. After doing some digging, I discovered PM is just a white label version of Clicky. I’m still confused why you would used PM as opposed to Clicky.
Here’s a quick run-down of some other stats services I checked out:
- W3Counter: more than expensive than PM and didn’t seem to offer any more/different features.
- Mint: The price – $30/site – scared me away. Having never used Mint, I’m not sure whether the features are worth the price.
- WordPress.com Stats: The price is definitely right – free – and you get a basic, user-friendly stats service that will meet the needs of most bloggers. The only downside is it’s a plug-in just for WordPress blogs.
- Google Analytics: While it’s free, it’s far from my favorite stats service – mostly because the page view counts also seem significantly lower than other services. As well, Google Analytics is geared towards Webmasters and AdSense junkies as opposed to bloggers who want to know their numbers.
- StatsCounter: solid and free until you surpass a certain number of page views.
- FeedBurner Stats Pro: despite the BlogBeat acquisition, I’ve never viewed FeedBurner as a stats service provider. If you’re into traffic analytics, however, it’s probably worth checking out.
- Quantcast: Solid but not a lot of bells and whistles. It seems geared more towards advertisers looking for high-level information about Web sites.
To be honest, I’m still not convinced Performancing Metrics is the stats service, which is why I only signed up for one month rather than pay $23.95 for one year. I’ll continue to search for alternatives, and report back. If you’ve got any suggestions, leave them in the comments.
(Note: I current use WordPress Stats, Google Analytics, Quantcast and now PM)
