Free-Webmaster-Tools.com is a collection of tools for your web development needs and insightful articles and tips.

PowerPhlogger. A free counter for your web site.
By Steve Shubitz

PowerPhlogger is a free counter for your web site which requires Php and MySQL. Don't let the name or distribution method fool you. This is a feature rich and powerfull script which is much more valuable than most free counter services and many pay services.

If you are serious about your site you need to know exactly what terms in a given Search Engine a visitor used to reach your site. It's never enough to know the term, you need to see which engine produced the visitor. This script is also designed to permit you to run your own counter service via multiple accounts. We use this feature to track different sections of our sites with unique JavaScript.

Tips

1. Install the pphlogger.js in it's own unique directory to track different parts of your site via seperate accounts. The code:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="https://www.site.com/counter_1/pphlogger.js"></script>
<noscript><img alt="" src="https://www.site.com/my_counter/pphlogger.php?id=my-site&st=img"></noscript>

2. Most of your Search Engine traffic will come from Google. To see exactly which terms your visitors used to reach your site do this:

- Launch your Admin. Your /admin/ directory should be password protected.

- Click User Accounts and then click the username id to open the statistics for this domain in a new window

- At the bottom of the logs page is a search form. Enter "google.com" in the Referrer field and press enter to see the terms, page views, and other data from this Search Engine.

- You can check your Search Engine position for a given term by right clicking the term which is inside the parens. For example:

Google (website for sale)

- The column on the far right hand side which is labeled "mp" means page views from this visitor. Mouse over the black rectange to see how many pages they viewed.

3. Inside your pphlogger directory is a file named engines-list.ini. You can edit this file to improve performance or even add your own engines for the script to track.

4. If you find this script valuable, please make a PalPal donation which helps insure furutre versions.


This article is ©2003 by Free-Webmaster-Tools.com/Published Perfection. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form is prohibited. Print this article.

Return to Webmaster Tips and Articles Index

Top of Page. Free-Webmaster-Tools.com is a collection of tools for your web development needs and insightful articles and tips.