There are a LOT of blogs out there that use Sitemeter for traffic analytics (including Phoenix Real Estate Guy).
Sometime this evening, something went wonky at Sitemeter, and any blog using it could not be viewed in at least Internet Explorer 7, some are saying also in IE6 and maybe IE5.5.
The problem does not affect those using Firefox (huh. Maybe yet another reason to use Firefox).
The only known solution at this time is to remove or comment out the Sitemeter tracking code from your blog Yes, you lose the stats, but that beats losing everyone using IE… It looks like you can also replace the Javascript Sitemeter code with the HTML version (you’ll lose some capability, and of course you’ll need Firefox to even get to Sitemeter.com)
(Your tracking code is most likely in your footer.php file or a sidebar file.)
I’ve always liked Sitemeter, been using it for almost 3 years. I suspect someone there is scrambling like mad right now.
There’s a flurry of activity on Twitter about this, and most tech blogs are beginning to mention it as well.
From Problogger. There are many more reports.
UPDATE: Sitemeter reports the problem has been resolved.
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...
Hi Jay
I saw this and wondered if it is useful to you – http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/convince-si…
You'll be doing all these people who cling to out of date – insecure – browsers a big favour; and maybe make life easier for yourself…
About a year ago I got a similar message when I visited this site. Whenever I tried again it worked. It happened 3 or 4 times. I thought it was my computer. Instead of saying sitemeter.com it said phoenixrealestateguy.
The programmers at Site Meter must not realize that there are no weekends off when you provide a service to thousands, tens of thousands or more people around the world. Someone will have a lump in their throat once they know they have caused an issue effecting all of their java based users.
Mark
Thanks for reporting this, I've taken this off for now until they fix it.
Jay,
How do you think sitemeter stacks up to Googgle Analytics when comparing traffic?
i've switched to Google Analytics on my blog, it actually does pretty good job and I trust google more so than other products. You may want to consider it.
I like Google Analytics too. I used Sitemeter because it had "real time" stats. Currently trying out GetClicky for that purpose. It looks good so far.
Sitemeter always seems to report lower numbers than Analytics. By about 10%.
That’s an odd problem to have with just one browser. But what a good reason to use Firefox! 🙂
I’d suggest trying Google Analytics as well. I’ve been with them for a long time now, and I’ve always been very happy with everything. The service just keeps getting better.
Yeah, the ML impode was crashing yesterday. Problem seems to be fixed now.
Agreed, and understood. I had other issues with WordPress in general and I just started blogging with Typepad since Saturday. Just for me, a lot easier. What I like is the support with Typepad. There isn't much of that type of support with WordPress and whatever they have is on forums. Look at my site and even though I am a little more limited with Typepad than WordPress, the site looks nice!
Jay,
I discovered this on Saturday. By the time I found out what the problem was my blog looked like it went through an enema. I started playing with Typepad and for now I copied and still am working on finalizing my blog on Typepad. Yeah, I know, I’ll get “yelled at” but I am just tired of the technicalities. I think I will probably switch to Typepad for good in the next week. I will map my domain name to http://gatos.typepad.com/massrealestateguy soon.
Jim – Typepad is certainly a viable option, not sure why anyone would yell at you. But this problem had nothing to do with WordPress. It was strictly a Sitemeter problem.
Thank you for reporting this! When all those sites started to self-abort inside IE, I thought my browser had been infected with a virus or something. You just saved me a fresh wipe and reinstall!
Thank you for reporting this! When all those sites started to self-abort inside IE, I thought my browser had been infected with a virus or something. You just saved me a fresh wipe and reinstall!
Thank you for reporting this! When all those sites started to self-abort inside IE, I thought my browser had been infected with a virus or something. You just saved me a fresh wipe and reinstall!