Updated

I received an email from Statcounter.com today about noon. Statcounter is a purportedly “free” statistical reporting package which we use(d) or RightPundits to track the total number of visitors. MBT’s prediction contests for 500,000 visits, 600,000 visits, etc. were based on StatCounter statistics.

The email read as follows:

Congratulations on having such a successful website! Kudos!

We would really like to continue to provide you with stats about your
visitors. But unfortunately as stated several times on the website. We
can only afford to track websites getting under 250,000 pageloads a month
for free. Your website is outside this model with more than 90,000 pageloads
a day!

Please upgrade your account or remove the code immediately or we will
have to manually block your project.

It went on a while about all the fabulous paid plans for web statistics, all of them sounding high-priced for what you get. I actually checked their site for the “several times” they mention the pageload limits. I found one on their homepage, but the language is happy and vague about it.

The infuriating part is within ONE hour, they had disconnected us from the service. As I see it, this is a ridiculously offensive high-pressure sales technique. They think people will panic without their website statistics and just pay the upgrade to get their stats back under duress.

No thanks. In fact, I will never consider statcounter again for any website I support because of this technique. Sitemeter accomplishes what we need it to do, with a quick switch of the code, and they actually DO do it for free.

Update: Never say never? Jenni from StatCounter has been active in our comments and has exchanged at least four emails with me since I posted about this problem. She agrees this should have never happened and pledged to resolve this problem for us and other StatCounter customers. I really appreciate her overtures. Bottom line is we are back on the StatCounter service, thanks to Jenni’s fantastic accommodation and customer service attitude.

This is an Open Trackback post, trackposted with frustration to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, Is It Just Me?, The Virtuous Republic, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Rightlinx, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Uncooperative Blogger ®, stikNstein… has no mercy, Pirate’s Cove, Overtaken by Events, The Right Nation, Renaissance Blogger, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Random Dreamer, A Blog For All, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, basil’s blog, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Phastidio.net, Conservative Cat, Jo’s Cafe, Conservative Thoughts, Faultline USA, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, and Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

[tags]statcounter, website+statistics[/tags]