How to get visitor statistics?

Hi Forum,
Can anyone explain how I can access visitor statistics if I have that enabled?

I haven’t found anything in the manager interface except the snippet GetStats.

So I have tried to create a new page from the (blank) template with the only content:
[[getstats]]

But when accessing this page, I get this error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: getsitestats() in /home/......./manager/includes/document.parser.class.inc.php(730) : eval()’d code on line 8

Do I need to install/include anything else to get access to the function getsitestats, or what am I doing wrong here?

I know it is better to use AWStats etc, but I don’t have raw log access where I host my MODx site (I can get it but at x many dollars extra per month). I’m trying to run this site (and many others) on a minimum budget so whatever stats I can get out of MODx is better than nothing.

Built in stats are deprecated in favor of much more robust and well architected solutions going forward and starting at 095. I would suggest investigating tools like Google Analytics which provides a very robust web site analytics solution.

Hi!
Thanks for the tip - I had a look at Google Analytics. It seems like a very good package but the idea of serving Google the exact blueprint of our site interlinking structure put us off there. We use a certain amount of creative linking and I think that giving Google all the details on that can only harm our rankings. We normally use AWStats, I like that package - but since we started to host sites off our own servers (as well), we can’t always use that.

Anyway, I am using 095 at the moment but found nothing in there - I assume the solutions you are talking about will emerge eventually. I’ll wait for these, or maybe pay up for the raw logs access and use AWStats.

And finally, just so I don’t come through as just complaining - I must say MODx is a very impressive package. I will develop all new sites using MODx, it is much more convenient and flexible than my old solution (Dreamweaver - static, but template driven). Thanks and keep up the good work!

095 will not have any built-in analytics or web stats, so you’ll be waiting for quite a long time...

As far as not wanting Google to know how a site is structured seems contradictory to most site goals of better search visibility. Not that GA does that, but I’m curious as to the application that you want hidden from the mighty Goog. Since GA doesn’t require access to raw logs it is probably the best solution (free one anyway) for you. There’s also Mint which is cheap, cool and (from what I’ve heard) quite good.

The Google Analytics plugin or snippet can be restricted to just the pages you want it on as well, in a variety of ways (specific templates, doc groups, @EVALs, and so on), so I’m not seeing any major drawbacks. And if you really want to control what Google sees, implement a Google Sitemap (snippet also available).

Hi!

Well, we use sitemaps - of course, since we do want Google to index us (and index us well). I love the sitemap feature in MODx by the way - that really took the hassle out of sitemaps.

The bit we want to keep private has to do with Google’s pagerank algorithm. The higher PR you have on a page, the better it ranks with Google, plus of course you need all the keywords, meta tags, and all the normal optimization correct as well.

To improve pagerank, you can either exchange links with others (who then should be in similar business - or it will count for little), wait for others to find you and maybe link to you because you’re so good - or you can create your own link popularity. Creating your own popularity simply means creating several (good) sites on related subjects - but not related in ownership. Not being related in ownership means - not owned by the same entity, not controlled by the same entity, no same DNS, different IP-range etcetera. That can be done with a lot of energy and several companies in the group (with separate boards). These different sites (or rather site groups) will then need to link in an optimum pattern to each other according to the PR algorithm which is fairly well known so it is possible to determine a "good" linking structure for this purpose.

Google values links from independent sites higher than links from your "own" sites so we don’t want to provide G with any info to help demoting our PR.

However - if we use one Google Analytics account to check statistics for them all, they are by (Google) definition related and all advantages lost. Using several GA accounts would work, but that requires a meticulous regime of never logging on from the same IP or doing anything else that would tell Google there is a connection.

To avoid this hassle we prefer having a completely "private" statistics package - we can then group all stats together under the same administration.

Quote from: carlotto at Nov 23, 2006, 09:46 AM

[...] Google values links from independent sites higher than links from your "own" sites so we don’t want to provide G with any info to help demoting our PR.

However - if we use one Google Analytics account to check statistics for them all, they are by (Google) definition related and all advantages lost. Using several GA accounts would work, but that requires a meticulous regime of never logging on from the same IP or doing anything else that would tell Google there is a connection.

To avoid this hassle we prefer having a completely "private" statistics package - we can then group all stats together under the same administration.

Sounds shady at best.

-sD-
Dr. Scotty Delicious, Scientist

Hi!

It is shady indeed - like all business secrets and we don’t just give them away do we

Thanks again for all the good work that has been put into MODx, I really appreciate it and I will try to contribute if I can as I get to know the system better.

The "shady" practice referred to is that of creating numerous sites on the same subject linking to a main site purely for the purpose of artificially inflating the ranking of the main site. The idea is supposed to be that others find the main site of value and link to it. I have turned down offers to build groups of such sites.

Just to play devil’s advocate...

Is it necessarily wrong (or "shady") to try to beat Google’s PageRank system? I’m not so sure, although I’ve definitely seen examples of what seem to me to be unethical attempts to do so by creating phony sites that are of no real use to humans. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all such attempts are wrong or unethical.

It’s often seemed to me that the Google method of determining worthiness (PageRank) by linkage is inherently biased in favor of large retailers and against small business. Many more sites will link to large retailers, whereas practically no one has any reason to link to small merchants. So at least as far as commercial sites are concerned, Google’s system seems to me to put the little guy/girl at a disadvantage.

In practice, it seems that there must be some mitigating factors in Google’s algorithm (or combining it with the Open Directory Project, or...?) that even out the playing field a bit, because it does seem to me as if small merchants do relatively well in Google PageRank (or at least better than I would expect given what seems to be an unfair disadvantage). But still that doesn’t mean that we have to assume that Google’s rules are fair and just and we should just play by them. And even if we did, it’s pretty much certain that some competitor won’t and we’ll lose sales to them as a result.

Personally, I wouldn’t set up deceptive websites. But I’m not so sure where I’d draw the line on deceiving Google. Does using a thesaurus to vary the vocabulary on your site count as cheating, or is that just good practice?