Site Meter: When Our Traffic Stats Were Lost, and the Best Alternatives Today

Site Meter was one of the most popular free hit counters on blogs in the 2000s, and we used it on QuickOnlineTips too. This article tells the story of the day Site Meter lost our traffic statistics, what happened to the service later, and which website traffic tools to use today.

Quick answer: Site Meter was a free traffic counter that showed visitors, page views and referrers through a small badge on your site. In June 2008 a data center power outage made it lose statistics for some accounts, including ours. Many bloggers dropped it around 2015 after reports of unwanted redirects and slow pages. Today, use Google Analytics or a privacy-friendly tool such as Plausible, Matomo or Cloudflare Web Analytics.

The day Site Meter lost our statistics

One morning in June 2008, I was surprised to see that Site Meter showed only about 30% of our usual traffic for the previous day. My first worry was another hosting outage.

But Google Analytics showed normal numbers, and our AdSense impressions and earnings were steady too. So was it possible that Site Meter had lost our statistics? It had. Its status update said that its hosting provider’s data center had electrical problems, the servers had to be moved to another data center, and stats for that period could not be recovered because of the extended power outage. Only some Site Meter servers were affected, so users on those servers were the ones with missing data.

Outages like this are a reminder of why reliable data centers matter, even for big, popular services.

What happened to Site Meter?

Site Meter stayed popular with bloggers for years because it was simple: paste a code, get a badge, and see who visited. Later it changed hands, and in 2015 several bloggers reported that the Site Meter script was causing redirects to unwanted sites and slowing pages down, so many removed it. If you still have old Site Meter code in a theme or sidebar widget, delete it.

Lesson: run more than one traffic tool

The biggest lesson from that day still holds. Running two analytics tools lets you spot when one of them is wrong. Back then I ran Site Meter alongside Google Analytics, plus tools like CrazyEgg for click maps. Because Google Analytics had the right numbers, I knew our traffic was fine and the problem was the counter.

Best Site Meter alternatives today

• Google Analytics: free and detailed, and the standard choice for most sites.
• Plausible Analytics: a lightweight, cookie-free paid tool with a simple one-page dashboard, close in spirit to Site Meter.
• Matomo: open-source analytics you can host yourself, so you keep your own data.
• Cloudflare Web Analytics: free, privacy-first visitor stats.
• Microsoft Clarity: free heatmaps and session recordings, a modern take on what CrazyEgg offered.
• Google Search Console: not a visitor counter, but it shows the search queries and clicks that bring people to your site.

For more free tools to measure and grow your site, see our list of free Google SEO tools, and read the BBC effect on our traffic for another story told through our stats.

FAQ

What was Site Meter?

Site Meter was a free web counter and traffic statistics service, popular on blogs in the 2000s. It showed visits, page views, referrers and visitor locations.

Why did Site Meter lose statistics in 2008?

Its hosting provider’s data center had electrical problems, and the servers were moved. Stats for the outage period on the affected servers could not be recovered.

Should I still use Site Meter?

No. Remove any old Site Meter code from your site and use a current tool such as Google Analytics, Plausible or Matomo.

Is it worth running two analytics tools?

Yes, a second lightweight tool helps you confirm your numbers when one tool has an outage or a tracking error.