F.A.Q.

Questions? Find the answer below or contact us

Site Map

• Site Map
  Check out our site map. It is actually very useful!

Installation

• Web-Stat tracking code and installation instructions
  You can get the tracking code for your tracker here. Note that you will need your tracker ID (available from the top of the 'My Info' section of the Settings Panel)
• Step-by-step installation instructions for popular editors (Wix,Blogger, Wordpress, Weebly, Shopify, etc.)
  • Wix
  • Wordpress
  • Shopify
  • Weebly
  • Blogger
  • Godaddy
  • Joomla
  • Moonfruit
  • Others
• Simplified Web-Stat tracking code

  If you are having trouble installing the Web-Stat tracking code you can try using the simplified version of the code instead, available here. The simplified code does not use JavaScript, as a result it is more fault-tolerant and easier to install than the full version. The drawback is that it will not record referrers, screen size or screen color information (every other report will be enabled and work properly).

• I am not allowed to use JavaScript on my site : what do I do ?

  The Web-Stat code comes with a 'simplified' version which does not use JavaScript and can be installed on practically any site.

  Since the simplified code does not use JavaScript it is more fault-tolerant and easier to install than the full version. The drawback is that it will not record referrers, keywords, screen size or screen color information (every other report will be enabled and work properly).

  Click here to get the simplified version of the code for your account

• How can I test that the code is properly installed?

  We have a testing tool available here

• Will the Web-Stat tracking code work on my https web site (SSL)?

  Yes. The tracking code is fully https compliant by default

• Will the Web-Stat tracking code slow down my site?

  No. Web-Stat loads asynchronously, independently from the rest of your page. It will not slow down your site at all.

• How can I position Web-Stat on my web page without modifying my layout?

  In the event that you chose to make Web-Stat display a counter, you can position it very precisely on your page by following thses instructions

• Can I install the code on all of my site's pages?

  Yes, you can, and you should: this will give your stats better accuracy. The minimum requirement is to install the Web-Stat code at least on your site's main page (entrance page) but you'll get better stats if you install it also on all your other pages (this will ensure that no matter where people enter your site Web-Stat will be triggered and record the visit).

  Note that if your site has 100's of pages installing manually on each page could be time consumming. Fortunately on large sites there is often a header and/or a footer that gets added automatically to each page. If this is the case for your site, installing the Web-Stat code only once in that header or footer will cover all your pages at once.

• Can I install Web-Stat on several web sites?

  You can add a single Web-Stat account on as many sites as you wish, but if you do this your stats will be aggregated in one account and you won't be able to get traffic patterns for each site individually.

  This can be fine if you have several URLs or sites that are part of a larger ensemble, and you want to have an overall picture of the traffic on the larger 'meta site'.

  However, if you want separate stats reports for your sites, then you will need to create separate Web-Stat accounts, one for each site.

  Once you have created your first account, you can create additional ones from the Settings Panel (click on [ add an account ] at the top of the second section)

• Is Web-Stat invisible?

  You can choose to display a counter, a sticker, a panel showing online visitors, or you can make Web-Stat entirely invisible so that it does not show at all on your page. These options are all available in the Settings Panel under 'Appearance'

  Note: if the invisible tracker still shows an extra blank space or slightly modifies the alignments on your page, please read the note on positioning the counter: it will show you how to remove Web-Stat entirely from the page's HTML flow so that it's impact on page design is null.

• Can I make the counter visible on my home page and invisible on the rest of the site?

  Yes : you can override the default [ Show counter ] status (defined in the Settings Panel) on a per-page basis.

  By default the counter visibility option selected in the Settings Panel will apply whenever the counter is loaded on one of your pages. If you want the counter to be visible on your home page and invisible on others, all you need to do is set the counter to 'Show a counter > no' in the Settings Panel, then on the home page, use the advanced version of the Web-Stat code and replace:

  var invisible='#';

  with:

  var invisible='no';

  or, if you want to force an invisible counter:

  var invisible='yes';

• Do I have to install your logo or a banner on my site ?

  Absolutely not. We do not rely on advertisements to run Web-Stat. Nothing at all will appear on your page after you install the Web-Stat code (unless you choose the option to display a counter, but that's up to you).

Admin and billing issues

• How much does Web-Stat cost?

  The basic version of Web-Stat is free to use for all. The premium version costs $9.50 per month

  • A basic account will monitor your incoming traffic (number of visitors, referrers, entrance pages, geographical location, etc.) but does not follow your visitors inside your site to record their behavior, so reports like 'page views' and 'click-paths' are not available.

  • A premium account includes all the above stats. It will also follow your visitors inside your site and record their behavior (click-paths, page views, time spent on each page, conversions, bounce rate).

    The premium version also includes uptime monitoring, which attempts to connect to your site every 15 or 30 minutes to verify that it is up and running normally (if it is not it alerts you via email and cell phone text messages). It also measures the time it takes to establish a connection to your site and presents that information in additional reports (average connect time per day, per month, per day of the week and per hour, average uptime per day, per month, per day of the week and per hour)

    Finally, the premium version will give you a connection counter, which allows you to display the number of people connected to your site in real time. For instance we are using it here to show you that right now visitors are connected to the Web-Stat site.

• How can I upgrade my account?

  You can upgrade your account at any time by clicking on 'upgrade' int the top menu bar.

• How can I cancel my upgrade?

  If you have a free account, there is no need to cancel it: remove the tracking code from your site and the account will expire automatically. There is nothing else for you to do.

  If you have a paying account, log into the Settings Panel and click on 'Cancel Premium' at the bottom on the left side.

  Alternatively, you can contact us with your account ID requesting that we cancel your account. We will proceed and send you a confirmation within 24 hours.

  Your cancellation request must reach us at least two (2) business days before the last day of the month otherwise you will be charged for the next billing period. NOTE THAT WE DO NOT REFUND PRORATED FEES FOR UNUSED OR CANCELLED SERVICE.

• What payment options do I have ?

  When you sign-up for an upgraded account you can choose between:

  • monthly credit card charges (recurring)
  • monthly Paypal charges (recurring)
  • one-time credit card payment for a 6 or 12-month subscription (not recurring)
  • one-time Paypal payment for a 6 or 12-month subscription (not recurring)
  • one-time check or money order payment for a 6 or 12-month subscription (not recurring)

  If you choose the check or money order option, your account is immediately upgraded and an invoice is sent to you via email. You then have 10 days to send us your payment.

  Please see also this page

• How can I update the credit card that is used to pay for my account(s) ?

  You can update your credit card information securely online ; all you have to do is:

  • click on the 'Settings Panel' tab
  • log in
  • click on 'update' next to 'credit card' in the top section
  • update the credit card information

  Note that for your security your credit card number and ID code are not stored online, so they will not appear on the update form.

• How will your charges appear on my credit card statement ?

  Our monthly charges will appear on your credit card statement as Web-Stat.com

• I have lost my tracker ID and/or password

  You can recover a lost password or user ID (or both) from this form

• How many sites can I monitor with one tracker?

  You can add a single Web-Stat tracker on as many sites as you wish, but if you do this your stats will be aggregated in one account and you won't be able to get traffic patterns for each site individually.

  This can be fine if you have several URLs or sites that are part of a larger ensemble, and you want to have an overall picture of the traffic on the larger 'meta site'.

  However, if you want separate stats reports for your sites, then you will need to create separate Web-Stat accounts, one for each site.

  Once you have created your first account, you can create additional ones from the Settings Panel (click on [ add an account ] in the second section)

• Why do you have traffic limits ? What happens if I go over ?

  In order to provide reliable service we need to put a limit on the resources made available to each account. For that reason, the number of page views that can be recorded by a single account each month is capped at 50,000 page views per month (this provides plenty of room for most web sites and is rarely reached).

  If your account ever goes over the limit the gathering of stats will get temporarily suspended and you will receive a warning email. You will then have three options:

  • Remove the limit by signing-up for our metered traffic plan in the Settings Panel ($9.50 plus $0.09 for every block of 1,000 page views over 100,000 used during the month). Note that this plan is only available to clients who pay monthly by credit card

  • Upgrade your account to a higher traffic limit (from the Settings Panel)

  • Wait until the end of the month and traffic analysis will resume automatically (no new data will be recorded while the account is suspended).

• I am moving my site to a new domain : what do I need to do ?

  There are only two things that you need to do:

  • Update the URL of the monitored web site in the Settings Panel ('Tracker Info' > 'Web Site Tracked')

  • Verify that the Web-Stat tracking code is installed on the new site so that visitor monitoring can continue uninterrupted

How do I?

• How do I exclude my own visits to my site from the stats ?

  You can easily tell Web-Stat to ignore your own visits to your site. Go to the Settings Panel then select 'Exclude my own visits > yes' in the 'Filter & Exclusions' section

  As soon as you do so, visits to your site made with the browser you were using when you set the exclusion will be ignored by Web-Stat.

  Note:

  • If you use several computers or browsers to access your site, you need to repeat the above for each computer/browser, so that they are all excluded.

  • The exclusion is set by writing a cookie on the computer's hard disk. If your computer's cookies get deleted or reset for any reason, then the exclusion setting will cease to work. Simply access your stats to reset it.

• How do I exclude certain IPs from the stats ?

  You can tell Web-Stat to ignore visits by certain IPs. Click on 'Configure' in your Web-Stat Settings Panel, click on the 'Filter & Exclusions' section of the Settings Panel and enter the IPs to be excluded in the 'IP exclusion' box, one IP per line

  If you need to exclude a range of IP you can do so by entering the low-end IP, followed by a hyphen, followed by the high-end IP. For example to exclude IP's between 227.234.0.0 and 227.234.69.230 you would enter the following IP exclusion : 227.234.0.0-227.234.69.230

  If you are looking for your own IP to exclude it, use this link: what is my IP number?

• How do I record my site's referrers ?

  There are two types of referrers to your site:

  • Sites that send you traffic without charging a fee (search engines for instance). These sites link to you with a normal HTML link (when you hover the mouse over the link you see your own URL in the browser's status bar)
    

    Web-Stat will automatically detect all referrals generated by these referrers.

  • Sites that send you traffic for a fee (pay-per-click search engines, and most sites on which you purchase a banner or an advertisement). These sites link to you with a redirect (when you hover the mouse over your link you don't see your URL in the browser's status bar, instead you see a URL on the advertiser's own site, which then redirects to your URL if you click on the link)

    For this type of referrer, you'll need to make a slight modification to the URL that a visitor is sent to in order for Web-Stat to correctly detect where the visitor came from :

    Instead of asking the advertiser to send traffic to www.my_site.com you would ask that the traffic be sent to www.my_site.com?source=referrer_name (replace 'referrer_name' by the name under which you want this particular referrer to appear in your stats). Your visitors will end-up on the exact same page, but Web-Stat will be able to extract the referrer name from the URL and correctly keep track of where your traffic is coming from.

    More information on the formatting of URLs for precise tracking of your pay-per-click campaigns is available in the referrer and search engine tracking tutorial

• Can you tell me who my visitors are ? Can you record their name/address/email/profile ?

  Internet was designed with people's privacy in mind, making it technically impossible to get personal information on your visitors (such as name, email address, profile, etc.) All we can do is detect the IP number and domain name of the server from where the request to your site originated. 99% of the time that request comes from an ISP and the IP number has been dynamically allocated to the visitor (which means that if the same visitor comes back later he/she will have a different IP number).

  Note that visitor identification is plain impossible : no one can offer that service so don't waste your time looking for it. Keep in mind that in the end this is a blessing : imagine your mailbox every morning if every site you visited could collect your personal information...

• Can I track the downloading of PDF/Music/Video/Image files from my site ?

  Yes, you can track the downloading of external files as if they were page views. Instructions are available here

• Can I find out which links people follow when they leave my site ?

  If you sell banner ads on your site you may be interested in knowing which banner is the most popular and which links to outside resources are most heavily followed.

  The difficulty is that Web-Stat can only be installed on your own pages, so it's hard to directly measure the fact that a page outside of your control was opened by one of your visitors. However when that page is accessed through a link on your site, clicks on the link can still be measured so you can find out how often each banner or links were used. Instructions are available here

• Can I custom-name my pages in the stats ?

  By default, Web-Stat will identify your pages in the reports using their URL. In order to make the stats easier to read and more manageable, you can use custom names for each page.

  To custom-name a page, simply use the advanced version of the Web-Stat code on the page in question, then insert a name between the single quotes after the 'page_name' variable as follows:

  var page_name='any_name';

  A page name is any character string containing only alphabetical letters, digits or the hyphen and underscore characters. Blanks are not permitted.

  More information on page naming is available here

• How do I track conversions on my site? What are conversions?

  Web-Stat allows you to track up to five conversions types. For detailed info on conversion tracking, click here

• How do I download my stats to my computer ?

  You can download any report in Excel format by clicking on the 'download' link in the action bar just above the report

• Can Web-Stat detect robots and spiders coming to my site ?

  Web-Stat only measures 'real' traffic, generated by actual visitors. Robots and spiders are not counted in your stats.

Something is not working

• When I go to my site my visit does not appear in the stats

  First, check that you have not excluded your own visits from being counted (go to the Web-Stat Settings Panel and look at the 'Exclude my own Visits' section: the setting should be at 'No'. If it is at 'Yes' change it by selecting 'No' and submitting, then try going to your site again.

  If your own visits are still not being counted, your account is probably set to 'Test Mode > No' in the Web-Stat Settings Panel, which means that it will only count one 'visit' for a given visitor in a 30 minutes period (this is a very desirable feature ; after all if someone comes to your site and reloads your page 5 times you want us to count 1 visit, not 5). Your visit was counted when you originally accessed your site but your return visits are being incorporated inside the existing visitor record because they are part of the same 30-minute session

  To test your account you can :

  • set it up so that it increments every time you reload your page : simply go to the Web-Stat Settings Panel, click on 'Tracker settings', select 'Test Mode > Yes' and submit.

  • close your browser, wait at least 30 minutes (make it 45 to be safe), then go back to your site : your visit will be counted as a new session.

• The geographic location (city, state) stats are sometimes incorrect

  When we show you the geographic location of a visitor what we are actually measuring is the location from where the visitor's Internet Service Provider (ISP) issued a connection request to your web site. Usually the ISP servers are near the visitor's physical location, but sometimes the distance can be of a few miles.

  In some cases the ISP will re-route the connection requests through its private network, so that they will emerge far away from the actual visitor's location. These cases are not very common but they do happen.

  These limitations are shared by all stats suppliers out there. As of today Web-Stat is using the most precise localization tool available and as far as we know you can not get more precise data anywhere else.

• Web-Stat is reporting fewer visitors than the stats supplied by my host

  The stats supplied by your host are derived from an analysis of the host's server log files. Discrepancies between server logs and Web-Stat results are a common occurrence ; here are the main reasons why :

  • If someone loads an image (or any non-HTML file) from your site without loading an actual web page the server logs will count a visit regardless. Since the visitor did not actually make it to your site Web-Stat filters these events out and no visit is counted.

  • If a robot, spider, or any automated process loads your page, your server logs will show a visit. Web-Stat correctly filters out all artificial traffic and only shows 'real' visitors.

  • Web-Stat will only count one 'visit' if the same person comes back to your site within less than 30 minutes ; you need to check what your host is counting exactly. If they have a different definition of a visit they will show different results (or they may be counting 'hits', which are document requests to your server, and will result in an inflated visitor count since a single 'visit' can generate many 'hits').

  • Server log reports separate visitors by looking at their IPs ; more and more with cable modems, people use firewalls that change their IP at each HTTP request, so everytime one of these visitors requests a document from your site, the server logs will see a different IP and count a new visit. Web-Stat will correctly identify these requests as part as a single visit. This alone causes large discrepancies as the server logs see a lot more visitors than actually came to your site.

  Please note that Web-Stat has been running stats since 1998. During all these years we have had many people challenge our results and each time we did an in-depth invertigation. We have found a satisfactory explanation in every case (either Web-Stat was not properly installed or Web-Stat and the other stats program were not measuring the same thing). In other words we are very confident in our data since it has proven to be correct every single time during many years over tens of thousands of sites.

• Google Ads (or another pay-per-click engine) is reporting more referrals than Web-Stat

  The usual reasons for a difference between our stats and the stats supplied by Pay-per-click search engines (such as Google Ads) are :

  • Web-Stat will not count the same visitor more than once in a 30 minutes interval. Some pay-per-click engines can count multiple clicks by the same visitor in an equivalent time period.

  • Pay-per-click engines measure clicks towards your site ; we measure the fact that your page was actually loaded into someone's browser. If someone clicks on a search engine link then goes back immediately, which happens often, then you get a 'click' counted by the engine, but no visit on the Web-Stat side because your site was not actually 'loaded' in the visitor's browser.

  • You need to properly configure your pay-per-click links. It is important that you instruct the pay-per-click engines to send your traffic to :

    http://www.yoursite.com?source=some_engine

    instead of simply to:

    http://www.yoursite.com

    ... per the instructions in the referrer tracking tutorial

• The timestamp of my visitors is off

  When you create an account we attempt to automatically detect your time zone and apply it to your stats. Nevertheless, if you notice that the time stamp for your visitors is incorrect simply adjust your time zone from the Web-Stat Settings Panel (click on 'My Infos').

  Note that updating the time zone does not affect the timestamp on previously recorded visits. Only future visits will use the new setting.

• I reload my page and no new visit is counted

  In normal operations, the counter will only increment once for a given visitor in a 30 minutes period (this is a very desirable feature ; after all if someone comes to your site and reloads your page 5 times you want us to count 1 visit, not 5).

  To test your account you can force the counter to increment by one every time a monitored page is loaded : simply go to the Web-Stat Settings Panel, click on 'Tracker settings', select 'Test Mode > Yes' and submit.

• A new visit is counted every time I reload my page

  Your account is set to 'Test Mode > Yes' in the 'Test Mode' section of the Web-Stat Settings Panel, which means that the counter will increment by one and we will count a new visit every time the Web-Stat code is loaded. This is useful only to verify that your account is working properly after installation. The account should not remain in test mode and you should choose 'Test Mode > No' for normal operation.

• I have excluded my own visit but the setting does not 'hold'

  You can have Web-Stat ignore your own visits to your site by selecting 'Exclude my own visits > Yes' in the Web-Stat Settings Panel. When you select this option we write a cookie on your hard disk that allows us to recognize your browser when you come to your site and load your counter. If that cookie gets erased for any reason we are unable to recognize your browser anymore and your visits get counted again.

  To prevent this from happening make sure that your cookies files don't get erased. Specifically, this will occur if you remove them yourself or if you run a program that erases them for you at regular intervals (some disk cleaning, anti-virus, security, or privacy programs can remove the cookies from your hard drive if improperly configured).

Miscellaneous

• What is your reliability, track record ?

  Web-Stat was started in February 1998, which makes us one of the earliest web traffic analysis companies in existence. We have been in operation uninterrupted since, serving about 100 million hits per day. We use a sophisticated set of tools to monitor the load on our servers and we upgrade our hardware regularly in order to keep up with demand. We maintain about 25% excess capacity so that you can always count on the reliability of your stats (we had zero downtime in the last 12 months).

  We have over 250,000 clients running all types of sites, large businesses, home pages, small businesses, government agencies, etc. Please take a look at our client's feedback to find out what other people thought of working with Web-Stat.

• Where are you located ?

  Web-Stat is headquartered in South Carolina (USA). Our servers are located in Chicago.

• Do you share my email address or my stats with third parties?

  We have a very strict privacy policy which we adhere to in all circumstances. Your personal data is confidential and will never be shared with anyone. As to your stats, you have the option to make them either 'public' or 'private'. If you choose the 'private' option, they will be password-protected and can only be accessed by yourself (or anyone whom you shared the password with).

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