Update To My Thoughts On The StatPress Plugin
It is getting close to having been about a month since I posted the warning about the StatPress plugin. I have been testing a few things since that time and have determined that it is most likely safe to use it. Especially when you take a few precautions.
The problem this plugin caused arose from there being too many queries to the database on a shared host server. She did not remember exactly how many entries were stored in the database before she deleted them, but did remember that the number was quite high.
I continued to let it run on one of my sites to see what happened. It gets a decent amount of traffic that usually ranges anywhere from 800-1200 uniques a day.
What I did was completely remove the plugin as well as deleted all of the entries in the database for that site. Then I re-installed the plugin and used a different configuration to see what happened and the results turned out just fine.
So if you are going to use this plugin on a shared host, here is my advice. Once you have the plugin uploaded, click on the StatPress tab, then click on Options.
Next to "Automatically delete visits older than", choose either the 1 month or 3 month option. If you can live without the 3 month data, then choose the 1 month. This will automatically delete any entries in your database older than the time frame you have specified to help keep your numbers lower.
To be sure this function is working properly, it would be wise to login to phpMyAdmin every once in a while and check your database entries for the StatPress plugin. If you see that the numbers are quite high, you can empty those entries and start over fresh. If you are not comfortable in doing this, then please get someone who is familiar with databases to do it for you. Again, it is better to be safe than sorry.
Likewise, if your site does not have a huge amount of traffic, you can definitely get away with using the plugin.
I promised I would revisit this when I had news and this is what I have found. I hope this helps and if you have any questions, don't hestitate to let me know.
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Kevin from Great Wall of China (8 comments.) | Sep 18, 2008 | Reply
Thank you for explaining this issue. You have cleared it up!
Jeffrey from Child Safety (1 comments.) | Sep 24, 2008 | Reply
Thank you so much for the great share! Keep it up!
Yan from Blog for Beginners (2 comments.) | Oct 2, 2008 | Reply
A week ago, my account was suspended due to sudden spike of traffic. I wasn’t sure if it was due to statpress or stumbleupon but I’m pretty sure I didn’t set to automatically delete the previous data.
Thank you for sharing it. I love statpress but if it keeps giving my problem then I’d have to do without it.
Yan
Yans last blog post..The Best 15 SEO Tools At Your Disposal
Melissa | Oct 2, 2008 | Reply
Hi Yan,
Thanks so much for stopping by!
I believe your problem could have been caused by a combination of both factors. If you were getting quite a bit of traffic from StumbleUpon, then it added a lot of new entries to the database via StatPress.
Then again, if their explanation for the suspension was due to a spike in traffic, it could have just been all the users from StumbleUpon.
Just to be safe, you can always check your database from phpMyAdmin and see if there are a lot of entries. By a lot, I mean close to 100,000 or more. If the number is high, I would advise to go ahead and clear that data while you are there.
By doing this, if a suspension were to happen again, you would know it is not due to StatPress.
I know exactly how you feel. I love StatPress, too. I have implemented it again on most all of my sites, but I keep a closer eye on it now.
Thanks again for stopping by. I have visited your blog a few times as well and appreciate the information you share there.
All the best,
Melissa