I Need a New Hosting Company

my current hoster has lousy stats interface

[davester28]

My site uses frames heavily, and my current hoster's stats don't work correctly with the frames.

Any suggestions? I'm using the big Y to host my .com right now.

Any help greatly appreciated!

[MWpro]

Is moving to a non-frame layout an option for you? I don't know how your page works, but there are many advantages in doing so, especially with search engines.

[trismegisto]

What do you mean with lousy? What would you expect from the stats?

Recently i also decided to change my host, i used the advanced search in findmyhosting.com. I don’t know if that site is reliable, but it suited my needs.

[davester28]

The stats are lousy because...

A: There is no way to filter a time period, in other words, what hits did I get this month, this week, what's getting hit today, etc... Just a total number of clicks per page.

B: Pages with frames show zero hits, always

C: Very buggy, for instance, when i click "referrer", and "search engines" to see who's sending me hits, it only shows google, even though i get hits from many search engines.

D: I can see keywords from google for certain pages, and not for others, and from NO other search engines

E: I have been crawled, but have no logs to check on the crawls, and can't even tell from my stats that I have been crawled.

These are just examples, I'm totally blind as to my traffic

[davester28]

MWPRO said... "Is moving to a non-frame layout an option for you? I don't know how your page works, but there are many advantages in doing so, especially with search engines."

= Well, the frames work well for me in all other regards. As far as the search engines, they haven't had a problem with my pages, as I put a copy of the meat of my page in the "no frames" area of my page.

Also, my stats problems are bigger than frame issues. A running total of page clicks ( with no date filters ) just doesn't do the trick for me. I can't even reset all of my page hits to zero (I asked their tech support, and they wouldn't either). (See above post for more problems)

[SlowMove]

I've had problems with stats programs that hosts run. Is that really a good reason to find another host? I would think that other issues are more important, like if the servers stay up and running. You could always download the log files and run any number of stats programs. I don't know if that would help with frames, but it seems to me that log files are log files regardless of the host, right?

[davester28]

They don't offer the log files with my package. But now that you mention it, they do have more expensive hosting packages that include access log downloads.

I hadn't gotten excited about that option, as a text log didn't sound like what i needed. But, your suggestion of a third party program to look at the stats is awesome. Are there any free programs, or inexpensive ones that anyone could recommend?

Many thanks to everyone!
Davester

[lukasz]

Changing the host wouldnt help. Standart packages included with hosting wouldnt get you better stats. For that reason I broke out of frames and I am very happy about that. I thought frames worked well for me, but only after I drop it I learnt how wrong I was.
I can use standart stats packages now.
The page size is cut down by 2/3.
The page loads faster.
Server load is down as well.
My site appear much higher in search engines.
Do you need more reasons?

[SlowMove]

Are there any free programs, or inexpensive ones that anyone could recommend?

Wusage - but there are other opinions.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[claus]

First, i agree that you should consider a redesign without using frames. This has nothing to do with the stats though.

You say that you have your page contents duplicated in the "noframes" space. This is not a very good idea, as your pages are now twice as "heavy" as they could be. Simply put, it's not very user-friendly, plus it seems ..hrm.. like.. well.. *deleted* ... to serve the content two times for each page.

I do not know the major SE's policies toward duplicated content, but i am sure others do.

But, your suggestion of a third party program to look at the stats is awesome

Here, i would recommend you to look for a hosted stats/tracking solution. These can give you good stats no matter if you have frames or not.

It's not a counter, though, like the so-called "stats" your current host gives you. Apart from this it works the same way: put a little script at the bottom of the pages you want to count, then simply read the stats right off your browser.

There are a lot of them out there. Try searching for "hosted stats", "hosted tracking", "hosted traffic measurement" or whatever you prefer to call it.

/claus

...ooops.. prices.. from free to very expensive.