The Best MySpace Tracker: See Who Views Your MySpace Profile

Gone are the days when you can stalk someone on MySpace anonymously. Chances are, that person you're keeping Internet tabs on has a MySpace tracker that tells them not just that you're viewing their page, but how often.

Now that MySpace has become an online phenomenon and most everyone has their own MySpace page, you'd probably like to get in on the fun and know who's stopping by to check you out.

There are several MySpace trackers available, but the best I've found is from MixMap. Their tracker is the most customizable, gives you lots of information about who's visting your profile, and doesn't require you to post corny bulletins advertising their service to others. It also allows you to hide the fact that you have a MySpace tracker on your page, which is kind of the point. You don't want your stalkers to know you're stalking them, right?

Setting up the tracker is pretty self-explanatory. You have to choose if your tracker is for MySpace or another site, then enter your MySpace ID, which MixMap will guide you through.

You then name your tracker and choose what kind of tracker you want to have -- private and viewable only by you, or public and viewable to anyone who visits your MySpace page. Even if you have a private profile, you can create a tracker that will track anyone who visits the main page that says "This user's profile is private," or you can create a tracker that only tracks actual friends who visit your full page.

Once you get the code for your MySpace tracker and add it to your page, you can begin keeping track of your stalkers. This is the fun part! You can log in to MixMap as often as you want and see who is tracking you when. There are a number of views you can use -- you can see your visitors on a map, there are bar charts arranged according to time and pie charts arranged according to where your visitors are from.

My favorite is the "statistics" view, where you see a list, beginning from the most recent visitor and working backwards, of who has visited your page, with a bar chart showing the total number of unique visitors per day and the total number of visits.

How it works

MixMap works by tracking your visitors' IP addresses. Without getting too technical, this is simply an address that identifies the unique location the user is signing on to the Internet from. MixMap will show you the user's city or town, their IP address, the time of their visit, what page they visited (as long as you have a tracker on that page) and what kind of Internet service they have.

From this information, it's up to you to do the guesswork and figure out who's who. You can do this a number of ways, and after awhile, you'll get very good at being a MySpace detective.

For example, if you only have one friend in Minnesota, and the MIxMap tracker shows a visitor from Minnesota, you obviously know who that friend is, and you can enter their name into MixMap. From then on, whenever that person visits your MySpace page, their name will come up.

You can also use clues about the type of Internet service your visitor has to help you out -- for example, if you only have one friend with FIOS, and someone with FIOS visit your page, (this information is available when you click on "IP address") you'll know who it is.

Another easy way to tell who visited your MySpace page is by people that leave you messages or comments. You can match up the visitors you see on MixMap with the time someone left you a message or comment and know who your visitor is that way. Over time, you will figure out who is who and know virtually all of the people that visit your MySpace profile.

One side note

Note that for people with wireless Internet cards, their MIxMap location will probably not show where they actually are. For example, I have a wireless card from a major company, and apparently the wireless service is based in New Jersey, which is the location that shows up from my IP address, even though I'm actually in Massachusetts. But over time you'll get to know what info relates to a wireless card, and will probably be able to track down your visitor in other ways besides their location.

Also, sometimes a user's location will appear as a neighboring town from where they are located, as that may be where their Internet service is based.

And remember that people may go on trips or be at school, so they'll occasionally visit your MySpace page from a location other than their normal one.

Overall, in my experience, MixMap is by far the best MySpace tracker. It is easy to create and easy to customize, doesn't require you to promote it to your friends, can be public or private depending on your preference and gives you all the information you need to figure out who your MySpace stalkers really are. Happy Tracking!