Mint: My Favorite Analytics Program
It seems everyone has their favorite analytics program or analytics service. After testing and using many of the most popular services, standalone programs and WordPress plugins, my favorite real time analytics program is Mint. The service that comes in second for me is Google Analytics because data retrieval is delayed.
Inexpensive Software
One of the problems that I see with a lot of website owners is that they want everything for nothing. I can only say one thing about that: You get what you pay for.
Mint costs a whopping $30.00 in US dollars for virtually unlimited support from the author. The license is strict, but what do you expect for $30.00?
Real Time Data
There are analytics services available, such as Clicky and some are very good. The problem I have with them is that if you need other than the basic services, you're going to be paying for it. The "spy" feature for most of them is unnecessary unless you're expecting a "Digg slam" or something.
With Mint, you can click on an item in any of the individual panes and that pane will update immediately. If that's too much work, there's a plugin available that will refresh all the panes at specified intervals.
Extensibility
Plugins for Mint are called "peppers". If the basic installation, also called the "Thin Mint", doesn't do enough for you, there may be a pepper available from the Mint Peppermill that can. If not, you can either write one yourself or request one in the Mint Forum.
If you ever wonder how I can find out so quickly that one of my posts has hit the first page of the Google or Yahoo SERPS, you can stop wondering. I use the Passive SERP Tracker Pepper for Mint (simply called the SERPS Pepper at the Mint Peppermill).
JavaScript Only
Mint uses JavaScript only to track website visitors. It prevents tracking of robots such as crawlers and spambots. The trade-off is that it won't track your visitors who have JavaScript turned off in their browsers.
If you're monetizing your website based on page views, it's better to report conservative numbers rather than numbers inflated or skewed by robots. By only using JavaScript, you can be assured that you're receiving more visitors than what's being tracked.
If you're showing ads, like Google AdSense ads, visitors who don't have JavaScript turned on won't see the ads anyway. Why would you care about their numbers in regards to ad-serving?
I use Mint for this blog and Google Analytics for the others. This is the only blog where I need to know what's going on in real time.
My Preferences
I'm using Mint for only this blog right because it's the only blog in which I need to know the real time numbers. The primary reason is because I'm always experimenting to see what works here and what doesn't.
I use Google Analytics for the blogs I don't need real time data for. There's nothing wrong with using both, I just prefer not to.
What are your preferences? Do you have a favorite analytics program or service that I may not know about? I'm not going to mention the ones I know about (other than the ones I already mentioned) because I want YOUR opinion.
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Can i do both analytics and mint at the same time?
My latest blog post: Mister-Wong: A Dofollow Social Media Site for Tons of Backlinks.
Yes, you can. It may be overkill, though, depending on what you're using it for.
Would you recommend mint for an e-commerce site? Can you setup conversions?
Not as is. If someone creates a conversion pepper, then it would be okay. One doesn't exist right now (I haven't found one).
does this mean that it is open source and yo can create add-ons?
I don't know if it's open source or not. The author does encourage add-ons. Except for the default peppers he wrote, the peppers are all 3rd party.
30 USD for a website stats package, even one with bells and whistles?? Are they kidding me? I am no stats freak and even if I were, I would look for something free.
Awstats is a much better option
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
My latest blog post: Boxi and Panjo – Late Night Movie
The part I like about Mint is the real time data. Awstats is fine if you don't need that. I only use Mint on this site because it's the only site that goes haywire with all my experiments.
I like the SERPS pepper. That alone makes it worth it, in my opinion.
Yes, but Awstats can be configured, I believe to provide near real-time stats…
My latest blog post: Boxi and Panjo – Late Night Movie
Informative. I used Google Analytics and StatsCounter. The stats are almost identical, and both are free.
I tried Clicky but didn't like the interface. Firestats is too much work to remove all the bots.
I know many people that surf with scripts off. I wonder how prevalent that is?
My latest blog post: unknown
I'm sure the percentage of people who surf with scripts off is very low. I'd guestimate less than 1 percent of the overall population.