Site Meter Jumped the Shark
posted by Daniel Solove
Site Meter has just rolled out a new “upgrade,” and it has managed to take something that was generally quite good and totally ruin it. Site Meter used to be a way to see one’s site visitor stats simply and easily. Now, it is bloated with all sorts of hard-to-read charts that work much more slowly, take many more clicks to use, and don’t display the information in a very readable or useful format. I’ve been playing around with it all morning, and I can’t find much to like. It has made checking one’s stats incredibly cumbersome, so much so that it is virtually unusable. There doesn’t appear to be any way to change the settings to make it display the information in a simpler format.
It appears that Site Meter forgot the important motto: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
A search of Google blogs reveals that I’m not the only one who finds the new Site Meter to be very disappointing. It is surprising that Site Meter seemed to roll out a radical new design and format without first finding out from its users what they wanted. This strikes me as a very unwise move — it even makes Microsoft’s Vista look great by comparison.
To fellow bloggers out there, some questions: (1) What do you think of the new Site Meter? (2) Am I missing some hidden virtue in the new Site Meter? (3) Does anybody know if there’s a way to revert back to the old Site Meter? (4) Can anybody recommend an alternative stat counter service that works better?
September 14, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Posted in: Blogging
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Responses (8)
Corey Rayburn Yung - September 14, 2008 at 3:05 pm
The new interface just seems awful. I can’t even get my traffic information consistently. Most of the time it just says, “Loading Reports,” but never actually loads the reports. So, I’m interested in alternative suggestions for stat counting as well (although I’m only looking for a free service since I was only a “Basic” Sitemeter user).
Michael Risch - September 14, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Agreed – it is just awful. Takes forever to load – no way to bookmark (that I can tell) the report I want – tiny font, hard to read, etc.
On the plus side, it now shows all pages visited by each user – that’s kind of nice.
Gideon - September 14, 2008 at 4:38 pm
It’s awful. Absolutely awful. The one thing I look for is referring URL and it took me forever to find that.
Corey (and Daniel), I also use statcounter.com (totally free) and Woopra (also free). Woopra uses a desktop client, so it’s pretty powerful, although I think it is still in Beta testing. But I love it.
Former Sitemeter User - September 14, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Bad business move. Very bad. Sitemeter blundered because now, all their customers will be looking for other options and alternatives. They got an excuse for seeking out the alternatives. The competitors of Sitemeter must be thrilled!
Even if they roll back the version, this incident still gives customers reason to do look for a backup stat package, when before they didn’t have to.
Meredith R. Miller - September 14, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I just went over to site meter and got this message:
We are in the process of rolling back SiteMeter to the former system.
SiteMeter should be back online soon.
Please check back later.
Sorry for inconvenience.
Sincerely, SiteMeter Support Team.
Logical Extremes - September 14, 2008 at 8:02 pm
The commenters at ReadWriteWeb all agree it’s bad.
Aaron Titus - September 15, 2008 at 9:20 am
I have been using Statcounter for years, and have absolutely no complaints– only praise.
Joe Hodnicki - September 15, 2008 at 1:07 pm
So bad that SiteMeter has rolled back to its original app and is now looking for beta testers!
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