Click Audit Was Parked - I Lost My Subscriber Stats!
My reaction was a loud WTF when I tried logging in to check my click stats. Click Audit, the link/click tracking tool I was using until very recently to track subscriber count to SEO ROI has just been turned into a parked domain! In other words, it just features a bunch of useless ads. It may be a temporary thing, because the site likely didn’t make the owner(s) much money, but I’m not waiting around to find out. (Updates below; I found another click counter, and Click Audit is back online.)
I’m not going to cave in and go to Feedburner. Or annoy you guys with ads from Pheedo. What I will do is set up my own click tracking script on my server and just run things that way. Anyone got a favourite free click tracking script that’s easy to install and easy to use? I’d like it to have a similar interface to Click Audit, preferably, if you know what that was like. Helpful suggestions for alternative scripts to track subscribers with in the comments will be rewarded with dofollow links in updates to this post.
Oh, FYI: I had 1300+ subscribers (or clicks on subscription links, which is how I was counting subscribership) as of yesterday. Feel free to subscribe (and let me know that you did in the comments, since I have no way of knowing now that Click Audit is gone..
Lesson to the wise: Be as independent of third party services as possible.
UPDATE: John of Z Scale Model Train Layouts (who sell PSW concrete abutment sets and a Blasted Rock abutment set) shared a free script that’s very easy to install and use.
There’s almost all the functionality of Click Audit (there are no groups and no PPC cost measuring) and most importantly, you can install it on your own server! So I’m now using PHP Junkyard’s Free PHP Click Counter.
Update 2: In a further helpful comment, John highlights some problems with the database being text based, such as it not being able to handle very high volume. Also, Click Audit appears to be back up for the moment. I’m sticking with the script for now. Also, for future reference, here’s a screenshot of where my sub stats stood as of May 12th, per Click Audit.
My understanding of total clicks is that it comprises those clicks coming from the same Ip within a given period of time (like 24 hours). So someone whose feedreader was slow to grab the click and turn it into a readable subscription might click a second time, for instance. That’s why I refer to the unique clicks count as my subs.
—> I am currently using a hacked version of Erwin Bovendeur’s Click tracking script. It didn’t work out of the box, though, fyi, so I needed a developer to fix it up for me.
Update 3: Click Audit is back online. I’m still using the self-hosted script for my new posts etc.
I too had to scramble to find a good link tracker alternative once I realized ClickAudit was done. I did a WHOIS search and that name registration expired on May 10. I tried a few alternatives and settles on this:
http://www.phpjunkyard.com/php-click-counter.php
Pretty clear instructions. Seems to work fairly well, though does not give you a day-by-day counting of links. Still… for free… it’s a pretty good alternative I feel.
John
[Reply]
Comment by John — May 11, 2008 @ 2:46 am
Hi,
Glad you found this script useful… it does seem pretty elegant though as you mentioned… it’s not quite as feature filled as CLickAudit.
One caveat I ran across, and this is in the maker’s own support forum:
http://developers.phpjunkyard.com/viewtopic.php?t=124
It seems since this is a text file system, not a database, there are some limitations on the number of links / clicks it can support.
Not an issue for me at the moment, but something to be aware of.
John
[Reply]
Comment by John — May 11, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
ClickAudit is back…
[Reply]
Comment by John — May 12, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Why is Feedburner to be avoided?
[Reply]
Comment by Will — May 16, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
[...] What do you guys think the problem is? If you’re a Googler and you read this, some help/rectification/clarification/separation of the listings would be great. And please don’t tell me to try this in Google groups - that’s proven completely useless. Besides that, if you guys liked this post, you might care subscribe to my RSS feed (link goes to XML, not Feedburner). [...]
Pingback by Wrecking Local SEO 201 - Do External Links Cause Merged Reviews? | SEO ROI Services. Need an SEO Rockstar? Contact Us. Prices $3K-$10K/mo — July 8, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
What about ClixTrac at http://www.clixtrac.com? It appears to be similar to Click Audit. Your post here was from a few months back but now I see that Click Audit has discontinued the service altogether. So it appears ClixTrac might be a good replacement to go with.
[Reply]
Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
January 12th, 2009 at 11:58 am
It’s an option, but you still are reliant on others. Better to pay a few bucks and get someone to install a proper script.
[Reply]
Comment by Ron — January 12, 2009 @ 3:30 am