A recurring issue we have encountered in our years providing web hosting services for clients is lost or inaccessible website analytics. For the most part we have relied on Google Site Analytics but we have experienced problems and limitations such as reaching the maximum number of accounts Google permits and then not having tracking code to insert. In an effort to continually improve the customer experience, we have chosen to start providing our own analytics solution by including Piwik with all of our hosting services.
Piwik is an open source (GPL licensed) real-time web analytics software program that aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics, and it is already used on more than 150,000 websites. It provides you with detailed reports on your website visitors: the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, your popular pages…and much more.
In laymen terms, you can check out who has been visiting your page, when, how and why. You can create Goals and track conversions. You can track unlimited number of websites, and create users with permission to view or administrate one or several websites.
If you don’t speak English, fear not. Piwik is available in more than 40 languages (and growing!).
What makes Piwik unique from the competition:
- Real time web analytics reports: in Piwik, reports are by default generated in real time. For high traffic websites, you can choose the frequency for reports to be processed
- You own your web analytics data: because Piwik is installed on our server, the data is stored in our own database and you can get all the statistics using the powerful Piwik Analytics API
- Modern, easy to use User Interface: you can fully customize your dashboard, drag and drop widgets you want to display.
- Piwik features are built inside plugins: you can add new features and remove the ones you don’t need. You can build your own web analytics plugins or hire a consultant to have your custom feature built in Piwik
- Vibrant international Open community of more than 100,000 active users (tracking even more websites!)
Here is the example of the Real Time Visitor Log showing you all visits, their actions on your site, how they reached the website (which keywords they typed or link they clicked on), Custom Variables, and more!
Piwik Has a Mobile App, Too!
One of our favorite features with Piwik is that there is a mobile app that iOS (iPhone) and Android users can install on their smartphones to view their website analytics on the go. This is handy for when you have some downtime to kill while waiting for someone, or for a meeting or appointment. Maybe you are with a client or prospective customer and could use access to some information you know is contained in your website analytics. Or maybe you are watching TV and just want to see what sort of activity is occurring on your website. Whatever the reason, you can install Piwik on your phone to access this data. A separate blog post about the mobile features is on its way…
To learn more about Piwik, use the links below which take you to the Piwik.org website.
- Take a quick tour of Piwki
- Check out the Piwik User Documentation to learn all the great features built in Piwik
- Find answers to your questions in the Piwik FAQ
- Get help in the Piwik forums – or ask a professional Piwik consultant to help you get the job done.
- Use Piwik to track all your websites, add users and set permissions, create and schedule Email reports
- Check out the list of features available in Piwik
As an AutoBurst customer there is nothing you need to do to benefit from this new service. It is included with our website hosting service and we are in the process of setting up all our existing customer websites with Piwik tracking. You can expect an email notification from AC Assist that contains information about your Piwik service along with your login credentials.
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