unklee

Interesting. I did note that the heading was very long, and that proved to be the answer.

For some reason, when I tried to add that code to the settings, it wouldn’t save (probably nothing to do with the plugin, more likely because I am in Australia and my host is in US, and there was some glitch along the way). But I simply added the code to my child theme CSS and that was fine.

Thanks for that prompt response. I have learnt something!

Thanks for replying so promptly. The image is set to 200×100 in settings and there is an image of that size in the Uploads folder. But it shows at 144×72 and there is no image of that size (but images of about 6 other sizes). All other images are the same, but they show correctly.

I have tried changing images (e.g. copying an image that is showing correctly), re-loading images, changing the order, etc, but always the reduced size. It’s very strange. But don’t worry too much, I can cope with the inconsistency, and it may be something on my site rather than in the plugin.

I live in Sydney, Australia, which is Greenwich + 10 hours. I presume Burst uses my local time, but maybe there is some glitch there. Good thought.

(3) Conclusions

Analytics results aren’t as accurate as you’d hope for many reasons:

(a) Some events are defined differently by different products.
(b) Different products deal differently with bounces.
(c) If cookies are used, some web visitors don’t allow them.
(d) Different products deal differently with bots and none can possible eliminate them all. I’m thinking this is the biggest reason for variation.
(e) Not all products properly eliminate self visits – I found G4 failed in this for me, despite help from a Google staff member.
(f) Probably other reasons too.

My very tentative and inexpert conclusions are that:

1. I think I won’t keep using G4.
2. I think Matomo may be the best product for a large site which needs detailed analytics.
3. I think Burst may be the best all-round product for smaller sites, except that it under-records at present. But once it changes how it addresses bounces (see https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/how-accurate-are-analytics-stats/), it should be more accurate.
4. Koko is a very simple and nice product for small sites but tends to over-record pageviews.

I hope all that isuseful to someone, and provokes someone else to do comparisons of actual data.

(2) Numerical results

I tested the four packages on two websites over varying periods from only 10 days up to 100 days. (That’s just the way it turned out). I compared results in 2 ways:
(i) Ratio of site visits & pageviews of each pair of products to test if different packages gave consistently higher or lower results.
(ii) How each product compared to the average of all four – I assumed the average was the “best” estimate. I calculated both the average deviation and the Coefficient of Variation (Cv) to test how consistent the results were (after all, consistency is the most important attribute). I think this is the best test.

(i) Google and Matomo gave very similar results. Burst was generally 5%-15% lower numbers than Google and Matomo. Koko was generally 0-10% higher.

(ii) Comparing daily results to daily average revealed the following:

? Overall, estimates for pageviews varied much more than estimates of site visits.
? Google was close to average on pageviews but not on visits. But its results varied both up and down from the average, so weren’t always consistent.
? Burst results were consistently lower so probably make better comparisons.
? Koko recorded visits close to average, but was always consistently higher on pageviews so alo not bad for comparisons.
? Matomo was probably the “best” overall – i.e. not too far from average and not too variable.

I think there was enough variation in these results that a larger sample is needed. I’m not sure how long I will keep the comparison going, but it would be good for someone else to try this.

I’ve done a short test of four analytics packages on two websites, and the results are interesting. The four packages were Google G4, Matomo, Burst and Koko. I’ll post (1) my conclusions, (2), the actual numerical results, and (3) why I think there is variation. I hope someone else is interested.

(1) Conclusions.
Google: Everybody knows it, but I find it messy, difficult and complicated. I don’t like it. I think it is probably the second most accurate.
Matomo: I like Matomo and I think it’s the most accurate. But it puts a mass of tables in the database.
Burst: I really like Burst as a product, it has good support and is both comprehensive and easy to use, but I think currently it may be the least accurate, generally giving lower numbers than the other.
Koko: Dead simple and minimal. I like it, but it seems to be only the third most accurate, generally giving higher results than the others.

Thanks for this explanation. I can understand that bounces can be hard to track, but I can’t see wht I would want to exclude them. Analytics is obviously a complex thing. Thanks again for informing me.

Hi, tganks for trplying. ButI didn’t go to the Matomo forum because I don’t want to get a Matomo bias, or a Burst or Google bias for that matter. I was hoping someone had a reference where the question has been looked at in detail by someone neutral. I will have a go at doing a bit of an objective test myself and I’ll report back.

Thanks again. I’ve tried to avoid using too many plugins, but I’ll give it a try.

Hi Brecht, thanks so much for your reply. (Sorry to take so long getting back, but WordPress didn’t notify me of your reply.)

My problem is that my original graphics are not all the same size, so when the related post thumbnails appear, they don’t always line up. I have set the size to 200×100 but some appear as 150×100 because they have a different aspect ratio. If I increase the setting to 200×200 that all come out the same width, but the heights will be different.

It isn’t an important issue, so I wouldn’t want to take too much of your time, but the behaviour is strange to me. Here’s a page that shows what I mean – https://www.is-there-a-god.info/life/angels/

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I realise Newsletter wasn’t designed to do what I wanted. I will try another plugin. Please disregard this thread. Thanks.

I think I can now be more specific in my question.

I can see how I can put a one step opt out in the email notifications – but that isn’t what I want.

I want to have two step unsubscribe, and I want people to be able to do this from the website, not just from the email. Is that possible please?

I can’t find any shortcode that allows it.

Thanks.

Hi, I’ve resolved #2, but still struggling with #1. I can see how people can unsubscribe in one step using the link in their welcome email, but how can someone unsubscribe years later when they no longer have that email? There are some unsubscribe shortcodes, but I can’t get any ofhtem to work.

Really appreciate your help thanks.

I have two websites using Subscribe2, both with the same settings as far as I can tell, and I am finding that the emails go out satisfactorily to subscribers on one site when I post but not on the other.

I wonder if you have any ideas please?