Thanks to Pete for digging out the fact that SiteMeter has been planting tracking advertising cookies from Specific Media’s specificclick.net in its stat-generation code. Because I HATE tracking cookies and third-party crap, I dumped them from both here and the TownHall version of NRE. At the same time, StatCounter said that it specifically rejected Specific Media’s offer, so I now have their counter installed (at least here; I can’t install it over at the TownHall version). I do automatically reject third-party cookies with Internet Explorer (there’s no direct analog in Firefox, but I keep a tight leash there), so it didn’t affect me directly; however, most people aren’t savvy enough to do so. I apologize for unknowingly planting Specific Media’s crap on your computer.
The good news is that StatCounter has an invisible counter, which I took advantage of. The bad is that it’s a bit harder for you mugs to see just how few of you there are, so I dumped a “Site Stats” link in the Internal links section of the left sidebar.
I’ve also enlisted FeedBurner’s site stats, which is why you’re seeing an “Email this” link in the posts both on the site and in the feed, and seeing “Subscribe to this feed” in the posts on the site.
Hey, thanks for the tip. I’m switching today. Got any idea if there’s some code I need to delete from a WordPress blog to delete Sitemeter?
[…] Is No More Welcome Here Jump to Comments PeteRepublic (via No Runny Eggs) informed me that Sitemeter’s problem has to do with the fact that they are doing a bad thing […]
Never mind, I think deleting cookies from Sitemeter and Specific Media should work.
Mike, check your e-mail. Simply killing the cookies won’t get SiteMeter off of Spring City Chronicle; you’ll have to remove the link to them.
Once you do get rid of the cookies (they’ll be from both sitemeter.com and specificmedia.net), I recommend having your browser automatically reject them.
Hi Steve,
Did you know you can set your StatCounter to any number you like, so you don’t have to ‘lose’ your old count of visitors?
If you’ve any queries, give us a shout!
Thanks.
Jenni
statcounter isn’t the only option available. You may want to check out GoStats too. (a little less limiting than statcounter in log history)