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Using analytics on my website

azan-n.com

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Re: Using analytics on my website

#51

Post by zoidb »

101008 wrote: post #36
zoidb wrote: post #18

I suggest using analytics that you can self-host, like https://www.goatcounter.com/ and renting a cheap vm to run it on along with your blog. It is way better, you have more control and you can be sure that javascript tracking is working for 100% of people using the site since you have full control over it not getting blocked by adblockers.

I use Google Analytics (I know, I know, it's bad, sorry for that, but I tried Matomo and it didn't work for me). I noticed in recent years the amount of visitors got down by a lot. Would it be possible to know that the reason is because the users are blocking Analytics JS? To compare, my website gets around 600 visitors per day according to Analytics, while Cloudflare says something around 4k. Who should I trust? Als…

Yeah I suspect a lot of that has to do with ad blocking and the problem with using log based analytics is filtering out bot traffic

Re: Using analytics on my website

#52

Post by rambambram »

cuu508 wrote: post #26
rambambram wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have visitor statistics enabled on my site and I like to see how many visits I get on articles. The point is to not see more in it than it can tell you, so I don't really understand the 'remove all statistics because it doesn't matter' argument. However, I must say your idea is a very good one!

I think the argument is "remove 3rd-party analytics because it is not worth the downsides".

Completely agree. No 3rd party code on my sites.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#53

Post by jacquesm »

palata wrote: post #41
rambambram wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have visitor statistics enabled on my site and I like to see how many visits I get on articles. The point is to not see more in it than it can tell you, so I don't really understand the 'remove all statistics because it doesn't matter' argument. However, I must say your idea is a very good one!

I see it like this: - If the analytics don't change the way you write, then they are useless overhead. - If they change the way you write (because you try to maximize the number of views), then they may be toxic. IMO you should write what you have to say, not what you believe people will want to read (with the help of tracking). When I realized that, I removed GoatCounter from my website, which is now a minimal, stat…

That's exactly my take.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#54

Post by azan-n »

robbie-c wrote: post #19

Hi HN, PostHog employee here. I'm working on our Web Analytics product, which is currently in beta. It's fun to see us mentioned here :) I should mention that we have a ton of SDKs (see https://posthog.com/docs/libraries ) for back end frameworks and languages, so if you wanted to use PostHog without any client-side JS you could send pageviews and other events manually, but for the vast majority of people it makes mo…

Hello there. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I figured I could use PostHog on a server as well but if I was doing that anyway, I'd probably use something better suited for the use-case instead of PostHog. I did notice the Web Analytics feature and turned the toggle on for my workplace but I haven't gotten around to using it and haven't heard about it from my team either. Will get back to you if I have anything to share. Cheers.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#55

Post by azan-n »

captn3m0 wrote: post #17
Brajeshwar wrote: post #6

If you already use Posthog, Web Analytics has been in Public Beta for quite some time.[1] If I remember correctly, CloudFlare Analytics does not need you to register your domain with them. I personally feel keeping domain registration coupled with your DNS provider is not a good idea. Plausible[2] has an Open Source self-hostable version but is not so updated in sync with their SaaS version. Umami[3] is another simpl…

I feel like the blog post confused domain registration and DNS on the root domain. CloudFlare absolutely demands the latter by asking you to change your name server on your root domain. The only way out is on the enterprise plan.

Correct. Thanks for pointing that out, I might not have mentioned it correctly in my post.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#56

Post by azan-n »

zoidb wrote: post #51
101008 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Google Analytics (I know, I know, it's bad, sorry for that, but I tried Matomo and it didn't work for me). I noticed in recent years the amount of visitors got down by a lot. Would it be possible to know that the reason is because the users are blocking Analytics JS? To compare, my website gets around 600 visitors per day according to Analytics, while Cloudflare says something around 4k. Who should I trust? Als…

Yeah I suspect a lot of that has to do with ad blocking and the problem with using log based analytics is filtering out bot traffic

I agree. With PostHog, I know that my ad-blocker will blocks the URL rendering the service useless, but I set up a reverse proxy using Cloudflare Workers to prevent ad-blockers from blocking it.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#57

Post by azan-n »

blowski wrote: post #10

I can understand the need for analytics on an advertising-supported site with >1M DAU, on a complex web application. But anything smaller than that and analytics are mostly vanity metrics. A lot of the traffic is going to be bots anyway. Write for pleasure. If you must, look for qualitative signals like discussions of the article on HN or Twitter.

The most important metric I want to track at the moment is the number of people who come to my website using the link on my resume. It helps me understand how many of my applications might have been met with interest (which so far has been 1, unfortunately).

With everything else, I agree. I write as a means of documenting my findings and sharing it with others and surely the discussion section here on HN is where it becomes useful to me where I can engage in constructive conversation and learn new things.

Thanks for reading the article, cheers.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#58

Post by azan-n »

openplatypus wrote: post #5

If you have the know-how and time/resources to maintain a self-hosted deployment, and care for security and privacy requests, that sounds like a sound plan. PostHog/Matomo are good choice. If you want it done for you, then: Matomo Cloud Piwik Pro Wide Angle Analytics ... plenty of choices

Of all the things that I have, time and resources surely are scarce. Thanks for taking the time to read, cheers.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#59

Post by azan-n »

marvinblum wrote: post #31

I was also looking for server-side analytics, created my own, and now it's a product! The idea is that tracking can be done from both, a JS snippet (for easy integration) and an API. Both rely on fingerprinting and almost provide the same set of features. The API just lacks screen resolution. The method is GDPR (and CCPA and whatnot) compliant [0]. Original article: https://marvinblum.de/blog/server-side-tracking-wit…

Pirsch was also recommended by others and looks like a product I'll be considering for projects with the resources to use a non-free tool. For my website, however, I think it might not be worth the spend for me.

Thanks for reading the post, cheers.

Re: Using analytics on my website

#60

Post by XCSme »

101008 wrote: post #36
zoidb wrote: post #18

I suggest using analytics that you can self-host, like https://www.goatcounter.com/ and renting a cheap vm to run it on along with your blog. It is way better, you have more control and you can be sure that javascript tracking is working for 100% of people using the site since you have full control over it not getting blocked by adblockers.

I use Google Analytics (I know, I know, it's bad, sorry for that, but I tried Matomo and it didn't work for me). I noticed in recent years the amount of visitors got down by a lot. Would it be possible to know that the reason is because the users are blocking Analytics JS? To compare, my website gets around 600 visitors per day according to Analytics, while Cloudflare says something around 4k. Who should I trust? Als…

Could you share why you didn't like Matomo? I am building UXWizz, a Matomo alternative, that is focused only on self-hosting. What parts of Matomo made you stop using it?
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