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Stats Pageview Counts Fluctuate Daily, Just Not At Midnight

One of the many controversial issues about Stats involves the daily pageview counts, which are reset daily. Most blog owners accept the daily count reset, in principle - they just don't understand why the counts should be reset during their day, instead of at midnight.

My pageview count goes up during the day - but in the afternoon, it goes to zero, then starts over again. Why is Stats so unreliable?


The pageview count reset would be better understood, were it to happen daily, at midnight, for each blog owner. Unfortunately, there are over 24 different time zones, worldwide - and Blogger blogs are surely owned by somebody in all time zones represented.

There are 24 time zones which roughly follow longitudinal lines - plus specific countries which have their own national clocks. India, for instance, spans 3 time zones, geographically - but observes one time zone, offset by 30 minutes, as "GMT+5.5". WikiPedia identifies a total of 40 time zones.

Many countries observe a seasonal variation, "Daylight Savings Time", when they move the clock ahead or behind, by an hour. DST beginning and ending date varies by country, irregularly.

If the daily Stats pageview count reset were to be scheduled according to the local clock of the blog owner (which would be impossible, for all multi owner blogs), there would have to be as many reset process schedules as there are countries in the world. Additionally, twice a year, most processes schedules would be shifted, according to the local DST offset.

Considering the almost inestimable number of rules required to schedule a local midnight count reset for all Blogger blogs, during the entire year, I suspect that the only practical design involves scheduling the reset, for all blogs, at midnight GMT. This means that no blog owners will see their pageview counts reset at midnight, during the entire year. Everybody simply has to accept their count being reset sometime during their day - with the reset time varying according to the twice a year local clock shift.

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