Beta testing of the new StatCounter interface is well underway… so we’d like to say a HUGE thank you to all our dedicated beta testers – your feedback is crucial and we are so grateful for all the time and effort you are putting in.
If you have signed up for the beta but haven’t yet received an invitation – don’t worry! We’re still bringing new tranches of testers on board every few days… so keep an eye on your inbox!
Selection of Feedback
Here is a selection of the feedback (good and bad!) received so far:
- The look of the site is too similar (tabs at top) to too many other sites. The unique (but space effective and imho easy to use anyway) layout of the old site is much more favoured... and after the feedback was taken on board and changes implemented… I do not think now the new design is too much of a shock nor adjustment to old users 🙂
- This page -magnifying user is much better set out. Far easier to read!
- I like the multi-line layout and indentation on long referral URLs – much easier to read without the horizontal scrolling
- Love the date range at the top of lots of the detailed stats pages
- The new interface is excellent. Nice and bright and very easy to read. It’s more compact and I do love the colours and brightness. It’s very modern and up to date in all ways.
- At first glance I am not sure about the layout. I am sure I will get used to this as we do have to ‘move with the times’ so to speak. I know many will say “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but yes, you have to move on and the new site overall is exciting. Initially, I do prefer the old visitor paths as all appeared to be in-line and easier to read.
- Well, overall having studied, and used, the beta version for a while now, I give it 99%. The only thing I do NOT like is the layout of the visitor paths.
- The new design is awesome, I like the whole thing about it. It’s clean, easy to understand and way better than the old design.
- This is NICE! Fresh, yet familiar. Everything is much easier to read and is simplified. Good job!
- I have to be honest-the full screen layout in the old design worked better for me.
- I am loving the new site. The new design is a lot slicker. The only feedback I have is that sometimes I feel there is a little colour clashing
- i am very pleased with the new look of statcounter and further impressed that there were no drops in my downloading speed of the page!
- Maybe looks more up to date, sexy grey and shading etc, but my first reaction is to reach for the view settings to try and make it all smaller on the screen so I can see more. I really like the way that original SC (OSC) is crammed packed with small type and links
- I have made a permanent switch to the beta. It’s still working very well.
- Congratulations!!!!!!!! StatCounter now has the look this incredible service deserves. It actually IS both new and extremely familiar.
- One thing I really enjoy about StatCounter pre-beta is its page openness and light feel. This is lost in the beta, and it feels like a lot of work to find the data that used to be easy to locate.
- Data looks good, but the design’s a bit 2008
- Just wanted to tell you again how much I like everything. Wish I could say the same for a number of other sites that I visit often that have done ‘makeovers’. Keep up the good work!
As you can see, the majority of feedback has been really positive – something that we are delighted about. Had the opposite been true, we would simply have had to bin the new design and start over! After all, we’re not doing it to make the site look pretty or so we can try out our design skills or experiment with new technologies … we’re doing this update to make using StatCounter a better experience for YOU. Period.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
The above comment is a recurring one on our last post – please rest assured that we have heard your concerns. We have no intention of jeopardising StatCounter for you in any way. We frequently get support requests for features that already exist.
For example, did you know that you can choose to display pageloads OR uniques on the My Projects page??
Or how about the fact that you can restore deleted projects for 6 weeks after deletion?
It’s simply not acceptable that many features are not obvious to our members and we are determined to put that right with the updated website.
We are also ACUTELY aware of the bad experiences many of you have had when online services do “updates” that seem to do more harm than good… Again, please be assured that we are doing and will do everything in our power to make the transition to the updated site as smooth as possible for everyone. We firmly believe that, when handled correctly, site updates can be successful and beneficial for all users and this is what we are hoping to achieve.
Remember, this update is happening simply and solely to make StatCounter better for you, our members. Most of the changes being made are happening as a direct result of feedback we have received from you over the last 12 months. If you haven’t already, please consider signing up as a beta tester – together, we can improve StatCounter all round and the more opinons in the melting pot, the better!
I hope your new version will solve a problem we’ve always had with Statcounter: Every time we send an e-zine (bulk email) to our database of 3,000 people, Statcounter says we’ve had, say, 2,000 NEW people visit our site (numbers for illustration only).
But they AREN’T new; we’ve sent emails to them many times before. It should count them as “returning visitors”.
Hi Paul,
That’s not a problem with StatCounter – that’s just a limitation of visitor tracking in general.
We use cookies to determine if someone is a Returning Visitor – if the cookie is removed or destroyed, then the person can’t be tracked as a returning visitor. There is no cookie to identify them as such. Further if someone visits your site for the first time using Internet Explorer (and gets a cookie) then the next time they visit they use Firefox (where there is not yet a cookie) then again, they can’t be counted as a Returning Visitor. Bottom line is, there is no perfect measure of Returning Visitors.
Paul – if this has been troubling you for a while, you should have contacted us on the Support Desk – we’re there to help you!
I feel best counter for my blog eversince I am using. hope for more developments.
Love your stat counter site, the best, just one question- I would love to know who and what website or email address is related to the IP address so I can trace back who is inquiring on my website…. The CIA and FBI can do it so why can’t the consumer do it???
Is the language in Dutch?
Peter
Since I am doing a little bit of webdesigning I use quite a few browsers:
Firefox,
Internet Explorer – different versions,
Opera,
Sea Monkea,
Safari,
Chrome.
The statcounter page is displayed well in all browsers withount any major errors.
By the way … Statcounter team, thank you for the great job!!!
This is great. It would be helpful if you could also add some features for view cross-tabs and analysis of data with past information.
I think it may have been suggested before but it bares repeating.
To my mind, the most useful stat that is missing is keyword ranking. If StatCounter can tell you what keywords are being searched for and which engines are being used to find you, it seems logical to know what position you came in at in the search.
For those of us engaged in e-commerce, it would be a nice feature if we could sift through the mass of traffic and find only those customers who have actually bought the product. I realize that this is probably beyond your ability to deliver, but the next best thing would be those whose exit link was the shopping cart page. Having the ability to filter for only those results (or, even better, enter a bunch of URLs and have only those customers come up on a single page) would be very helpful.
Great Counter! Best out there.
Lads, if you need any extra beta testers drop me a mail, I’d be glad to help !
Thanks for the excellent service. I hope you are working on a mobile app (for Android at least) as well. A free basic one with a paid one with advanced statistics could work.
I have statcounter on all my websites, as i always love an update i am really looking forward to it.
Since you just notified me about the improvements & site changes, here’s my two pence worth:
1) In the past two, three weeks, StatCounter has been so slow to load (using Firefox 3.6.8) that the browser typically times-out and a reload is required.
2) a lot of talk is published here about the re-design, yet there are no links where one could at least see images of said design.
3) what really surprises me, however, is the considerable discrepancy between statistics from SC versus those from GA. SC ha been around a lot longer, so for now my trust remains, albeit shaken somewhat, with SC. But the difference in even the simple numbers (actual visitor count, page load count, city/country stats) is still worrying. Maybe SC needs to clarify somewhere how it calculates its stats.
Dr. Peter Rorlach
Hi!
(1) There is NO reason on THIS side why StatCounter should be loading slowly for you. Neither does this have ANYTHING to do with the redesign – that is in beta and completely separate to the main site. Could be related to hardware/software or antivirus software or even problems with your ISP. We’d be happy to help you with this kind of issue – just submit a support ticket from within your account.
(2) At the top of THIS blog post and the previous one there is a small screenshot of the redesigned homepage. We’re not making lots of screenshots public when the system is in beta and in an almost constant state of change. Everyone will be able to see the system when it makes it to public beta. Beta testers are currently seeing and using the new system.
(3) Visitor counts are ALWAYS going to vary because of different definitions of “visitor” – at StatCounter you can define the max visit length. Hits are always going to be higher for StatCounter than GA because we track BOTH javascript and non-javascript visitors. (GA only tracks javascript visitors). County stats are going to vary depending on the IP Location Database used and how frequently it’s updated by the inidividual ISPs etc. All these issues have been discussed widely in our forum.
We try to make as much information publicly available as possible, however you should always feel free to contact us on the Support Desk with specific issues – we’re there to help!
Awesome! Just can’t wait anymore 😉