Track Web Site Analytics with RSS Feeds

I run a number of web statistic packages on my blog. These include Google Analytics, Statcounter, Sitemeter, Ice Rocket and Blogbeat (now part of FeedBurner). They all lack an important feature I have longed for - RSS feeds. No more.

Clicky, my new favorite analytics tool, has just added statistical RSS feeds. You no longer need to log in to get your data. Clicky has four feeds you can subscribe to They cover: visitors and page views for the last three days, your last 30 visitors, the last 30 incoming link referrers, and last 30 search referrals. These are private feed URLs - unless you choose to share them. (Hmm, imagine if we all did.)

Here's where this gets interesting. If you add any of these Clicky feeds to an online RSS reader that caches the posts, you can surpass the imposed limits. This means if you wanted to you could get a feed for every single one of your visitors.

Referral and search data is invaluable. It tells you where your traffic is coming from. Page view figures, though important today, are becoming less relevant. It's all about interactions, not views.

The folks at Clicky know the analytics world is changing and they are preparing what sounds like a terrific new tool. It's a site spy that works in a similar to fashion to the digg Spy. This will provide a live look at what people are clicking right now.

Here's a look at screen grabs from the Clicky RSS feeds...

Comments

[Randy Charles Morin]

I guess that's OK if you have less than 100 visitors per day, but if you are tracking 20,000 per day, then this would be overwhelming. Now, if you have 100 visitors per day, then analytics are really pointless cause it's just you, your mom and your closest friends.

[Derek Anderson]

Thank you Steve, for pointing out this awesome little feature.

"D"

[Frank Meeuwsen]

Mint has this feature since it's first release. This statistics tool is especially for weblogs. Check out www.haveamint.com for more

[Wilder]

I think you missed one. Check out simplefeed.com

[Sean]

Wow, thanks for writing such a great article about us, Steve! :)

Randy - valid point. Our service is aimed more at smaller web sites, because to these people each individual visitor is interesting. Although if you actually log in to your account and view your searches page, it is ordered by most popular first, whereas in the feeds it is just chronological. We are planning on crossing these together so you can view it both ways on either the site or the feed. So for big sites, having a feed showing your most popular searches for the day, or most popular pages, or incoming links - that might be a bit more interesting, eh? :) Coming soon...

[Jeremy Pepper]

Wow. A lot of stat programs. Some would say you must be over-compensating for something.

I use Sitemeter. I rarely check it. I write to write, not to feel fulfilled about something.

I guess we can say you write for stats, not for the joy of writing. Or your readers.

[Internet Strategy Blog]

Cool tools, thanks!

[Bennet Harvey]

Getting a feed of incomplete stats is not as valuable to me or my corporate blogging clients as getting complete stats from a single package/platform, regardless how they are delivered. Are you aware of anyone who reports on the full spectrum of web traffic (visits, referrers, etc.), blog stats (posts, comments, trackbacks, etc.) and RSS stats (number of feeds by reader/aggregator, number of pings, etc.)?

[Glen]

This is a very helpful stat for me. Im always looking for ways to tweak things on my blog.