Since a couple of people have asked
I use statcounter.com to keep track of my visitors on all four of my sites: thiswomanswork.com, openadoptionsupport.com, smartcookiecommunications.com, and dawnfriedman.com.
I use it mostly to track how people are finding the sites. Like for openadoptionsupport.com, I was just checking to see what keywords people are using to find the site because that can (and should) help direct content. I use it on my two professional sites to find how people are finding me and who might be interested in me. (And specifically to track marketing efforts for smartcookiecommunications.com.) The free version of statcounter tracks 100 visitors at a time, which is plenty for those three sites. (My work sites rarely get out of the single digits everyday and openadoptionsupport.com gets 50 to 150 visitors per day right now.)
My site here gets between 500 to 700 visitors per day so I can’t keep as close a watch on specific visitors so I really use statcounter here to find out if people have linked me somewhere (blogs I can see via technorati but the statcounter tells me when forums or email lists are debating some adoption post or other).
This stalker has found me on all four sites using different searches and when I click those searches, I can see that they’re likely coming here, too. It was just one day and I shrugged it off but they came back another day searching by using the kids’ names and Brett’s name. It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone searching for Brett but I can’t tell if they’re doing the search because they found his name somewhere on my site or because they know us (first and last name here). Brett is squirrel-y about the internet anyway and it’s making him nervous so I thought I’d post and let the person know that I’ve highlighted their IP to keep a watch on their visits.
Edited to add: Always assume people can see when you’re visiting, how you got there and what you clicked when you got there. Trackers can tell a person a lot. You know how people post their “searches to find the site” lists? They can do that because they have trackers.
I use a combo of statcounter and Google Analytics. Works well for us. Although it freaks me out sometimes. Heh.
Is it just me or has statcounter been broken for the last few days?
It’s been working for me, Matthew. Didja change out your theme or anything? I’m always doing that and forgetting to move my javascript onto the new theme but I’m ditzy that way!