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Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

benhoyt.com

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Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#4

Post by octref »

> Obviously with log parsing you don’t get as much information as a JavaScript-heavy, Google Analytics-style system. There’s no screen sizes, no time-on-page metrics, etc. But that’s okay for me!

This also bypasses Ad blocker. In the case you have a large percentage of technical audience (who presumably would have Ad blocker installed) this log can be way more accurate than GA.

However this still requires setting up the image on a third-party server. I would really love it if GitHub pages or Netlify can provide some simple server-side tracking. It doesn't match GA but in some cases that's all I need.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#5

Post by taormina »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #3
eljimmy wrote: post #2

If you’re not a fan of big brother you probably should be logging to bare metal instead of Amazon S3.

Are you implying Amazon harvests S3 objects for info?

I think it is incredibly fair to say that you shouldn't put data onto the servers of a company if you mind them reading that data. Why should I assume they aren't? At a bare minimum, the metadata is being actively consumed by the parent company. I don't think this is AWS specific at all.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#7

Post by benhoyt »

octref wrote: post #4

> Obviously with log parsing you don’t get as much information as a JavaScript-heavy, Google Analytics-style system. There’s no screen sizes, no time-on-page metrics, etc. But that’s okay for me! This also bypasses Ad blocker. In the case you have a large percentage of technical audience (who presumably would have Ad blocker installed) this log can be way more accurate than GA. However this still requires setting up…

> I would really love it if GitHub pages or Netlify can provide some simple server-side tracking. It doesn't match GA but in some cases that's all I need.

That would be a great feature for GitHub Pages! Just a simple interface like https://simpleanalytics.io/simpleanalytics.io would serve most GH Pages use cases, I would think.

Re: Show HN: I replaced Google Analytics with simple log-based analytics

#9

Post by benhoyt »

amanzi wrote: post #6

If you're using JavaScript to add the pixel code, why not also include other metrics you can get easily with JS like screen resolution?

Yeah, good question. I wanted to do that, but GoAccess is a web server log parser and doesn't support custom fields (you don't get screen resolution via web logs, so it kinda makes sense). See: https://goaccess.io/man

I could probably hack it and overload different HTTP status codes to mean different screen sizes or something, but I didn't consider device size to be important for me. GoAccess does break down the User-Agent into OS, so I can see mobile usage via the "iOS" and "Android" OS usage. Breakdown for my site: Windows 24%, iOS 22%, macOS 19%, Android 20%, Linux 11%, other 4%. So mobile usage is probably about 45%.

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