Using Stat Counter to track readers of your blog

Recent Visitors to the Blog

Here is the recent activity from my blog broken down by country for the last 500 hits, as reported by http://www.statcounter.com/ .

Here is a partial view via screen capture of the recent activity on my blog broken down by city. I can click on the triangle to the left of each city name to "drill down" and see each individual IP address in that city as well as other information about the visitor.

There was a discussion earlier this week on one of the forms about tracking readers of a blog. I posted a comment and there were some followup questions to me by instant message and e-mail about how I did this. I thought I would post the information here for those who don't know.

Last October when I was in Vietnam waiting to pick up Henry I sensed that my blog was getting lots of hits, but I didn't know for sure. There was great interest in how the process was going and I read comments about how many blogs were being combed for information about the embassy personnel, the USCIS, and the DIA. I found a counter at http://www.statcounter.com/ and put it on my blog in the right margin. The chart above shows the hits in the first half of November--with 300 unique hits on 9 November. If I recall this was around the time I had my interview with Mary Ann Russell in Saigon--there was much interest with what was going on in other provinces and how she was dealing with it.

For a while I just tracked the numbers--then somebody showed me how to get more information on the Stat Counter website. By signing into my account I can see hits depicted in a bar graph spread out over whatever span of days I choose. Below is the last seven days.

I can also see what country these hits are coming from, as seen below.
There is further information that I can't copy and paste here because it is not an image format. For the last 500 hits (because I just have the free service) you can see each individual IP address that goes to the blog, what city they are from, when they signed on, how long they stay, and whether they found the blog by way of clicking on a link off some other site or doing a Google search. They call this feature "drilling down" because it gives you specific information about the persons visiting the site.

In this way I have been able to see when my blog has been mentioned and linked by somebody else and I have also been able to see what search terms were used by somebody who found my blog via a search engine. This has usually involved a search about a hotel I mentioned in Vietnam or some other tourist related thing.

With the IP address and city I can tell for instance when my mother in San Antonio or my father in Georgia (or any other relative or acquaintance) sign on to read about how Henry and me are doing. I can also see that others are following the blog in other states and countries--from France to Florida, Malaysia to Minnesota.

For instance a few months ago I noted on a French language forum that there was discussion about Vietnamese twins adopted by two families in the US. I posted to the forum that I was one of the families being discussed and gave my blog address. For some time after that I noted numerous hits to my blog from all over France.

The tracking device can be a useful tool in knowing how your blog is being used and by whom. I have found it beneficial in both this blog about my adoption of Henry and my other blogs--one about my work as a librarian and the other about my recollections of my family and growing up as well as current commentary unrelated to my raising of Henry.

I don't think Stat Counter is the only place that offers this service, and as I said I just have the free service. It keeps track of only the last 500 hits so I have to monitor it often if I want to see the individual identities of my visitors.