Here’s a message I sent to pair Networks yesterday, asking about their policy prohibiting the use of their database resources for collecting site statistics.
Hello,
On your database policy page it reads:
“No database may be used to act as a “hit counter,” or for logging of information distributed nightly in the raw web logs (including but not limited to browser and page referrer information).”
pair.com/policies/dbresource.html
I use a web statistics program called Mint that relies on php/MySQL:
It is activated by a Javascript tag embedded in the page, and records a hit, as well as referrer info, etc. Am I understanding correctly that your policy would prohibit such a program?
Thank-you,
Jeff
This is what I received back today:
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in pair Networks. Using this program would be a violation of policy, so it could not be used on our servers. You are given your full raw Apache logs each day, so you may run whatever analysis you like on your logs. Using a database as a hit counter is an needless drain of resources, as all this information is contained in the Apache log file.
[snipped promotional text]
Please let us know any additional questions you may have about our services.
Thank you,
Brian K. Sales Associate pair Networks, Inc.
Seems strange to me that pair would not permit the use of a program like Mint, which gives real-time feed back on your site. The Apache logs are at pair are only available every 24 hours. This would discourage me from using pair’s hosting services.