Serendipity Forums

Apologies for what is probably quite a basic question. I am obviously new to the serendipity thing.

I was putting together my little blog and I was wondering if there is an easy way to get page views on individual posts, or on the page as a whole. It's probably also worth mentioning that it's hosted by my ISP so I might not have privledges to do what needs to be done, but I could try requesting it.

Hi!

There are multiple possibilities to do that.

The most usual is to use a tool like Google Analytics or an external tracker like awStats or phpMyVisits.

Then, the s9y internal variant is the use of the "Karma" plugin, which can also track individual clicks to articles.

HTH,
Garvin

Thanks for the quick response Garvin,

Are you familiar with Google Analytics, sounded like a good idea since I already have a gmail account and whatnot. I have to post the code before </body> tag, which I do how since I can only post bits and I am not actually hosting it myself. Or can I do it on an individual post basis...

Alright, I think for the point of the arguement, that the Karma plugin will do just fine.

Also possibly because google analytics takes 24 hrs to show up with the hits, helps to read the instructions.

There exists a plugin for google analytics.

To add the Google Analytics code, you could use an "HTML Nugget" plugin. This plugin allows you to add a nugget of HTML in your page. You could use this method to insert a counter from any service.

You could also modify the template itself, but that involves modifying the files on the server. It's not difficult, but it sounds like you don't have access to the files.

BTW - anyone ever compare what the plugin offers in excess of just placing the google analytics code somewhere on the page? I have been personally wondering if the overhead of yet-another-plugin is really worthwhile, but do not want to deprive myself of useful statistics by eliminating the plugin if it is superior to just the regular G.A. code.

If you do not want to track external links or file downloads, its better to include the ga code into the template.

kleinerChemiker wrote:If you do not want to track external links or file downloads, its better to include the ga code into the template.

How does the plugin handle external links and file downloads, and how does that translate to a GA report? I thought I added some google code to an external link once upon a time which then made it look like a page on my own site, but I cannot recall, and cannot find the link!

The plugin scans the output for external links or files and adds the needed code to the links (http://www.google.com/support/googleana ... opic=11004). External links look liek externe/www.externaldomain.tld/pagesxyz in your ga report. I dont know how downloads look like, but i think its download/filexyz or something like that.

Thanks for the clarification - I'll dig a little deeper into it on one of my test sites.

If you have further questns, you kan pm me. I think I could answere most questions, since I wrote the plugin. Only for some details I have to look into the code.

Thanks - I'm a bit distracted on something else at the moment, but one of these days I might take you up on that offer.