For months now I have been using relying on the brilliant Performancing Metrics package to track referrals to my blog as well as comments and the odd AdSense click. It was great, in fact it was by far the single most advanced and usable metrics package out there for a blog that I know of.

That was until they decided to drop the service and make it open source. I know they are a business, but I struggle to see how they couldn’t have made money by charging even $5 per month for access. Instead they’ve given it back to the community as an open source project, which is hard to complain about.

Anyway, if you’re anything like me you’ve probably been scouring the web looking for alternative metrics packages. So here are the ones I would be most interested in to run on a blog of any size.

Google Analytics
A metrics package from the behemoth itself. is a full-blooded metrics package that offers just about every feature that you could ever want, which is why I am not using it. I get the distinct feeling that Google Analytics is much more suited to large dynamic stores who can use features such as conversion tracking that just don’t matter to a blogger. However, there are some useful hacks that you can run on it like this one from Aaron Wall that tracks clicks on ads.

I make no bones about the fact that Google Analyics is a highly accomplished metrics package, it just doesn’t do what I want.

Feedburner
Typically associated with their feed services, are branching out into other services such as tracking visitors to your site. They have now integrated Blogbeat, which means you can simply track traffic to your blog by pasting in some JS in your template.

However, yet again it doesn’t do what I want. Yes it gives details of refferals, nice graphs etc. but it just doesn’t feel right for me personally. That doesn’t mean for one second that you should ever ditch FeedBurner’s brilliant RSS feed service. But using them to track my site metrics is not for me.

103Bees
This is a relatively new and free upstart in the metrics space and it has clearly been developed with the blogger in mind. While it doesn’t show posts commented on or display AdSense clicks like Performancing Metrics did, 103Bees is no doser.

It is by far the most useful metrics package because it will actually help you get more traffic. They allow you to clearly see trends, find out what questions people are searching for before hitting your blog, most popular entry pages and most popular search phrases. More than this, 103Bees can show you longtail search phrases, and any search marketer worth his weight should know how good that is!

So who do I recommend as a replacement for the venerable Performancing Metrics? For me it has to be 103Bees!