Site statistics - visitors tracking, hit counters etc.

This HOWTO describes ways to add statistics to your Site — including hit counters, visitors tracking etc.

Introduction

It is always nice to know how many people visit your Site. No matter whether it is a large one or a small one. So — in general most of the people here would now if their Sites are popular or not.

At the moment Wikidot.com does not offer any mechanism for tracking visitors so it has been decided to allow 3rd parties solutions to be embedded and used to measure traffic.

3rd party solutions

StatCounter

This solution works best here. What you have to do is to:

• go to www.statcounter.com
• create an account (if you do not have one)
• create a Project (for your Site)
• generate the tracking code
• insert the tracking code into your pages using the embed tags

Ok, and some details and tips

• When generating the tracking code you can choose different options, all of them should work with Wikidot. All the choices are quite nicely described during the process.
• You can decide if the counter is visible or not. You do not have to display a hit counter but this is a nice feature.
• Or it is displayed as an image or as text. Text counters are easier to customize using text formatting.
• On the page Code Options you should check no frames option. No other options are required to be changed.
• Do not use JavaScript code but rather HTML-only (image) when generating your counter. The JS version slows down loading pages which makes browsing less comfortable.
• However, if you choose the JavaScript code, you will be allowed to track keywords searches, visitors' path, visitors locations, browsers used and other Big Brother activities.

Now when you have a code you should embed it within your pages. It is a nice idea to embed it in your navigation elemnts so it is visible (and counting visitors too) on all of your pages.

So simply go to nav:side (default location of the side-bar) and paste the code there

[[embed]]
-- insert your tracking code here --
[[/embed]]

To make the counter more embedded you can use (provided you are displaying a "text" counter)

This site has been visited [[embed]]
-- insert your tracking code here --
[[/embed]] times.

Or even fancier, to be displayed on the welcome page:

= **this site has been visited**
[[div style="text-align:center; font-size: 2em; font-weight: bold"]]
[[embed]]
-- insert your tracking code here --
[[/embed]] times
[[/div]]

This is almost exactly how the code tracking works in the Sandbox Site].

Apart from displaying the hit counter StatCounter also offers some more advanced statistics. But this is not to be covered by this howto.

Google Analytics

Settings for it can be found in Manage Site/3rd party tools/Google Analytics
Enter your Tracking information (like UA-xxxx-x ) and enable the checkbox…

TODO. Does not work well for custom domains.

Clustrmaps

See at a glance where your site's visitors are located: instantaneously, even when the numbers are enormous! Visitors don't need to click on anything: just viewing your page is sufficient.
Get one Clustrmaps

The simple html code has to be converted into the wikidot [[image //source// link="..."]] format:

[[=image http://www3.clustrmaps.com/stats/maps-no_clusters/bhgc.wikidot.com--thumb.jpg  link="http://www3.clustrmaps.com/user/a463f343"]]

Comments

visitor counters

dkh1978 1203091318|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

There are numerous types of visitor counters, but it's always best to use one written in code that your web site design software works well with. If you use standard HTML for your site, I recommend using a visitor counter like the ones at http://www.hodgesstudios.com. The code is all in HTML and it's very short & clean.

Re: visitor counters

Helmuti_pdorf 1203235456|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Sorry, but this does not work with wikidot "embedding html" syntax. I have tested it..

last edited on 1203235555|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Helmuti_pdorf + show more

dkorduban 1207808090|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Dear admins! Your engine is really great, but GoogleAnalytics support needs a feature: possibility of setting custom cookies as described in GA docs to filter own traffic. It needs something like <body onLoad="…"> now.

Maybe, it's possible in other way - please tell.

Re:

Phil Chett 1207819666|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

you can do this from your google analytics account.
All you need do is set up GA function in site manager, then from the GA account apply the filter.

Re: Google Analytics

ErichSteinboeck 1207832593|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

setting custom cookies … to filter own traffic

I'm excluding my own traffic by:

1. Having [Greasemonkey] installed on every PC I'm using to access my Wikidot site

2. Adding the following User script to Greasemonkey (replace (mysitename) with the name of your site and UA-1234567-8 with your own Google Analytics code):

// ==UserScript==
// @name           (mysitename).wikidot.admins
// @namespace      http://geizhals.at/greasemonkeyscripts
// @description    Google Analytics Marker for (mysitename).wikidot.com
// @include        http://(mysitename).wikidot.com/
// @include        https://(mysitename).wikidot.com/
// ==/UserScript==
 
unsafeWindow._uacct="UA-1234567-8";
unsafeWindow.__utmSetVar("no_track");

3. Setting up the following filter on Google Analytics Edit Filter:
Filter Name: Exclude 'no_track'
Filter Type: Custom Filter
Exclude: (checked)
Filter Field: User Defined
Filter Pattern: no_track
Case Sensitive: Yes

Anyone have a StatCounter Snippet?

crazyhappenings 1210012953|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I can not seem to get this work. I was hoping for a snippet that I could compare against in case my syntax is wrong…. but I can't seem to locate any. Can anyone help out? I'm trying to use the StatCounter. Thanks :)

last edited on 1210012995|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by crazyhappenings + show more

Re: Anyone have a StatCounter Snippet?

Phil Chett 1210020337|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

have a look at this thread, might help
http://community.wikidot.com/forum/t-1513/embed-problems#post-154421