The Perfect Tracker

We did not find the ultimate tracker, not even after testing more than seventy trackers. We are not unsatisfied with the quality of the trackers, in contrary: a lot of the trackers in the test offer a very good product that will definitely help you keep track of your website visitors. But not one tracker combines all the nice features, some trackers offer this, others do offer that, it is just that no tracker offers this *and* that!

Once combined, these features in one tracker would bring forward the Perfect Tracker. And the Perfect Tracker is a free product of course. Look in the table for all the features that we want in the Perfect Tracker; actually there is one tracker that comes close in combining these options, Real Tracker Free reports on almost everything (if you do not mind the advertisement and occasional pop-up window), but there is so much more...

Referrers, where did your visitors click to get to your webpage, we can really not do without this referrer information. We would like to see every link, better even than in the eXTReMe tracker, but eXTReMe comes very close and does not allow the competition to stand in its shadow regarding information about referrers.

Of course we want fine and clear graphics, with all the counts and numbers nicely available and clearly readable. CQCounter and Nedstat are good examples of the way we want the statistics pages to look. If you look at navigation through the statistics pages then the way OneStat has implemented it is very intuitive, but all the statistics on one page makes it also very easy to quickly move to the important information. And this is how it is implemented by TopStat. And then there is the time it takes for the statistics to load on your screen. You better judge this yourself as we see big changes here over time, this must be related to the popularity of some of these trackers and the time it takes for the providers to add capacity. But luckily you will find a link to the statistics page with every test report; just click on the icon or graphic on the page where you are reviewing the test results.

If you do not want to loose your visitors, then the statistics must open in a new window. From the best trackers in the test, OneStat and Webcat.nl (only available in Dutch) both open a new window when visitors click on the tracker icon on your webpage. We also prefer that there are no ads on the pages with the stats, although we wonder how a product can ever be free without these.

Of course we do not want to run a banner or another type of advertisement on our webpage for a free tracker. A small graphic that is easily blended in with the site's design is OK, a hidden counter is even better. Stealth Lite allows an icon of 11x11 pixels, this is hardly noticeable on a webpage. Statcounter comes with an invisible counter as an option, but provides not enough information about visitors.

Looks is one thing, but how well it works is even more important. The tracker needs to provide reports that contain the right data and it needs to be available 100% of the time or come pretty close to this. Nedstat and HitBox have reputations to keep up, OneStat wants to build this reputation, as these providers have big market share in the business of paid website analytics. Also good to know: OneStat and Stealth Lite are very quick in updating their product to recognise new browsers and systems.

Privacy and Internet, can they ever go together? But at least we expect that the Perfect Tracker comes with a privacy statement that is clear in how your personal information that you provide when signing up, is treated. And nothing else than a statement that your data will never be given to anyone else and will only be used to notify you of urgent information related to your tracker, is good enough for us. Site meter is setting an example here. Unsolicited e-mail is unacceptable, but a news letter that we can opt-in to when signing up for the tracker is all right, at least when we can easily unsubscribe later.

It can be convenient to protect the statistics from your competitor's eyes. But the Perfect Tracker offers this as an option, because in case we want to share the stats we do not want to pass our password around. HitBox, GheoStats and Site meter understand this and give you the choice.

Last but not least: the Perfect Tracker is available in your language. You can select trackers that are available in English in this test, but many trackers offer more languages, so please take a closer look.