SITEMETER

While it used to be occasional, it seems SiteMeter is on the fritz constantly anymore. It repeatedly tells me that I haven’t had any visitors in the past 20 minutes, which would be more plausible if I weren’t getting e-mails and TrackBack pings during that same temporal span. Then, as if by magic, my count jumps up the next time I check it.

While I’m at it, their banner ad always seems to feature a not-very-appealing blonde girl, who’s reportedly domiciled in Virginia (is this a coincidence?) and claiming to be my dream girl. While I’m willing to concede that the photo on display might not be representative, the fact that she’s looking for a fellow anywhere from fifteen to two years my junior is also troubling. Perhaps she’d be more suitable for the Nigerian fellow whose business ventures I keep getting?

FILED UNDER: Blogosphere,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Dave says:

    I think that the ad is chosen based upon IP lookup for location – mine says ‘Oklahoma’.

  2. James Joyner says:

    Interesting. What’s the chick from Oklahoma look like?

    🙂

  3. Kevin Drum says:

    I don’t think SiteMeter has ever been a realtime system.

    On the other hand, it *is* free.

  4. James Joyner says:

    Good point:)

    I get my main stats from Hosting Matters, but they’re only scanning daily.

  5. Rodney Dill says:

    I have the solution, every time I visit your site I will also send a “Can you hear me now” email message

  6. Dodd says:

    This girl?

    Sitemeter tells me she’s from Louisville, KY.

  7. Dodd says:

    Ah, stripped HTML. Here she is:

    http://www.cdharris.net/multi/dreamgirl.gif

  8. James Joyner says:

    That’s the same girl! What a gyp!

  9. McGehee says:

    No, they’re all clooooooones!

  10. tanya says:

    that’s the “not-very-appealing” girl? no wonder i can’t get a date…

    i use addfreestats (sic) and i’ve found it’s a lot more reliable than sitemeter. plus it has a longer “most recent hits” list.

  11. James Joyner says:

    Tanya, Interesting. I get very reliable stats from Hosting Matters. I mainly use SiteMeter as a backup because it allows me to compare my traffic from the earliest days of OTB’s existence on BlogSpot and because it’s something of a “standard” that many of the big blogs use.

  12. James Joyner says:

    And the girl in question might be fairly attractive in person. The lighting–and especially that hairdo–make her unappealing in the photograph.

  13. tanya says:

    i always forget that hosting matters even has stats. (even tho my counter is run by them) i’m sure it’s much more accurate.