Ryan McFarland

Well it looks like the world is looking for images of Sarah Palin today.  And i have a few.  Look at this…

I better make sure my images are watermarked…

I found that i really missed the valuable information that AXS provided regarding my site visitors.  I was using Google Analytics (which I’m still using) but it couldn’t isolate IP addresses (probably over concerns over people’s privacy) or give much more than very generic and vague information on site visitors.  I’ll still use the service they provide but it doesn’t let me really drill down and see what is going on with my site.  I made a small modification to the code to allow me to see users that have switched to Firefox.  I also resumed tracking Myspace with AXS.

Here’s a good example of some data that AXS shows me.

So this person from oag.state.ny.us did a google image search for “french doors installation” and my photo was somewhere between 19-38 in the results.  This was at 6 AM (Pacific time so at 9 in NY).  I looked up oag.state.ny.us and…

…it is the Office of the Attorney General.  Someone in Albany installing a french door?

Using the same concept that Kevin used in this post i conjured up some tweaks of AXS so i can see hits to my site and my myspace profile at the same time. This will give you the visitor’s IP address, their domain, and some other information.

1 - You have to have AXS installed on your own server. Use the automated install tool - it really is easy. You need your own host - this can’t be done on your myspace page or a blogspot account. If you don’t have your own domain and host this method will not work for you.

2 - Upload an image to your site and give it a name that is distinctive and useful. Perhaps “myspace.png” or something like that.

3 - Go to your ax-admin.pl or ax-admin.cgi page on your server. Bookmark this page. On the bottom left click on “Instructions for Tagging HTML Pages” note the code needed to direct hits to your logs.

4 - Study up on the help files for AXS here.

5 - Make a URL something like this:
http://www.path/to/my/ax.pl?http://www.path/to/my/myspace.png

6 - Trick myspace into accepting the link by shortening it with YATUC or another URL abbreviator.

7 - Insert this code into your “Headline” section of your myspace profile.

8 - View your profile a few times.

9 - Go back to your bookmarked AXS admin panel. Click on “View in Database Format” and you should see your visits listed.

10 - Hit the back button. Select some check boxes like “Browser wars” “Visitor second level domain” and “Hits by day of week” and under “filter string” enter “myspace.png” or whatever your tracking image is. Then click on “View in graphical format” in the middle of the page.

11 - Have fun with it!