If you're a SiteMeter junkie like I am...

You'll be interested to know that SiteMeter -- yes, it's SiteMeter, not Site Meter or Sitemeter -- is shifting to a new platform next weekend.

Following the Migration all Premium Accounts will only pay one flat fee of $6.95 a month or $59.00 a year. This applies to new signups and current paid accounts going forward.

This is great news. The current fee structure was based on traffic levels, and I've been paying about $30 a month and expecting to see an increase with recent (election-based) rise traffic. I love the expanded statistics I get with the premium account, especially this page, which shows the websites readers are coming from. I also like -- and sometimes screen-capture and blog about -- this page, which shows the search terms that bring people here. There are always funny things. The terms are listed in alphabetical order, and there's always something in the section beginning with the word "why" that cracks me up.

For example, right now, there's "why does my dog seem mean when im high." I can click on it and get to the search page and see what post of mine was found and where my post ranked in the search. This page of mine came up on the first page of the poignant search that had some poor soul wondering, perhaps, whether his drug use was distorting his perception of the dog or whether the dog was pissed at him for getting high or -- why not? -- whether the drugs are enhancing his perceptions and the dog actually is mean. Of course, my blog post -- about Barack Obama's statement of belief that he has "the right temperament for the presidency" -- is not going to answer the question. There's nothing in the post about drugs: Obama uses the word "high" to refer to feelings of elation. And there's nothing in the post about dogs -- except one commenter's "Temperament. That's a quality dog breeders emphasize."

At one point, I decided I was paying too much for this information and downgraded to the free basic service, but within a few days I was back. I am hooked on the stuff. (Why does my dog seem mean when I smoke too much SiteMeter?) Suffice it to say, I'm happy with the new low price.

Visit Counts will likely be higher

We have now added the ability to track visits using cookies, this allows SiteMeter to distinguish unique visitors far more accurately than on the old (current) platform. For example, in an office building with internet users sitting behind one IP address the old (current) platform would maybe be able to detect unique visitors about half the time. Using the cookie system it’s nearly 100% accurate.

More traffic. Cool.

For those using our Free service with large volumes of visit traffic your visit counts may be lower. Our new platform offers unlimited capacity on visit records which no longer affects visit counts. (for more information on this see http://weblog.sitemeter.com/2007/10/05/sitemeter-visit-tracking-explained/)

Huh? So my traffic would have been higher under the free service? I don't like seeing that, but it only relates to the past. As for the future, it will be interesting to see the reshuffling of traffic statistic as some blogs will see a boost in their numbers and others a reduction.

So that's the SiteMeter news.