Hi to all,
The best thing on Piwik is that it does have ability to be able to track : Javascript ,Javascript + Image,and Server Side.
At least on joomla 3,with the plugin of Eorisis,you can do that easily.
Javascript is more user oriented and depends on the user and server side,it totally depends on the server.
1)Javascript tracking haves alot of back downs for example:
-it depends on the user to accept the coockie,no cockie messed up data,no matter if you use PIWIK or GA or any other beacon based system
-it depends that the script to be loaded in all your webpages,if your having an website with 10 pages,is easily to check this,if your having 100.000 pages,more hard to check.
-if the javascript it does not execute -no tracking again innacurate data
-if the user blocks javascript with anti-virus,firewall,adblock,ghostery,Ublock or any other add-on again innacurate data.
-if the user sees your sites via proxy that blocks javascripts
-if the user is using some kind of app in adroid or ios,that does not load the javascript inside the app,but he can read your blog
Google said,that about 5% of the users,haves javascript disable some time ago,but some time ago,people were not so freak out about coockies and stuff that are following them,and i guess you know the new EU law,that all the websites,haves to put,that cocckie messaje,and the user can reject the cocckie mostly,as they don`t want to be tracked,because mostly are not so tech educated,and think coockies = viruses and all kinds of malware,not all of them but the majority will not want to be tracked for all kinds of reasons,and you have no control on whatever is their choice.
Google did not take into account the 200 Million people,that are using Ad-Block,witch is now Main Stream,and some sites are reporting even 50% of their total visitators haves Ad -Block installed.
Maybe 5 years or 10 years ago when GA started,javascript was the best method,but its not anymore thats for sure.
Basically javascript,does depend on the user setup,and from my point of view ,this is totally out of control from any webmaster.
2)Javascript + image - maybe this option is an little bit more accurate,i did not tested,and people that are using this method,feel free to comment on this
3)Server-side -very good,but it does have a few back downs as well ,back downs that i think they can be fixed,and maybe we can come up with some solutions:
I`m using like i said joomla 3 on my side with Eorisis plugin for Piwik in that plugin you have option to Track BOTs,that is very important,as mostly,you want boots out of your stats,Human are Human and Bots are Bots,i setup on that TAB for Bots - IGNORE option on all.
I don`t know and maybe somebody can,clarify me,if i setup IGNORE option to all ,in eorisis plugin for joomla 3,piwik it will track on VISITATORS real time - HUMAN ? or BOTS + HUMAN ?
Or bots are tracked separately?
As after i activated server side tracking,i have BOT TRACKER display into my dashboard,and data started to flow in :
Bingbot 47462 2015-08-09 19:32:02
Yandex 11573 2015-08-09 19:32:01
GoogleBot 3754 2015-08-09 19:30:13
Yahoo! Slurp 1891 2015-08-09 19:31:21
Baiduspider 289 2015-08-09 19:27:25
Media Partners GoogleBot 51 2015-08-09 19:02:29
Magpie Crawler 32 2015-08-09 06:02:10
Wget 30 2015-08-09 15:40:57
XoviBot 4 2015-08-09 19:26:13
-On server side tracking you dont know the resolution of the user browser -On server side tracking you dont know what plugins the user browser is using.
-On server side it does not appear the time it did take the user to load the page -1s,4s,8s,etc
-Feel free to add more
This an problem,because this kind of data is important.
In awstat for example the first 2 problems is solved by this script:
MiscTrackerUrl
Version : 5.6+
MiscTrackerUrl can be used to make AWStats able to detect some miscellanous
things, that can not be tracked on other way like:
- Screen size
- Screen color depth
- Java enabled
- Macromedia Director plugin
- Macromedia Shockwave plugin
- Realplayer G2 plugin
- QuickTime plugin
- Mediaplayer plugin
- Acrobat PDF plugin
To enable all this features, you must copy the awstats_misc_tracker.js file
into a /js/ directory stored in your web document root and add the following
HTML code at the end of your index page (before ) :
If code is not added in index page, all this detection capabilities will be
disabled. You must also check that ShowScreenSizeStats and ShowMiscStats
parameters are set to 1 to make results appear in report page.
If you want to use another directory than /js/, you must also change the
awstatsmisctrackerurl variable into the awstats_misc_tracker.js file.
Change : Effective for new updates only.
Possible value: Full URL of javascript tracker file added in HTML code
Default: “/js/awstats_misc_tracker.js”
MiscTrackerUrl="/js/awstats_misc_tracker.js"
Maybe something like this can be implemented into Piwik as well,so we can see users screens size +what plugins are they using into their browsers.
And for the time on page,it should be an solution too,i don`t have it right now,but surely it can be solved.
On my side the numbers are very differently in one of my websites :
Piwik JAVASCRIPT tracking method 6 august 2015 - 95 unique visitators ,119 visits,206pageviews,125 unique pageviews
Piwik Server Side Tracking method 8 august 2015 - 2527 unique,2555 visits,7434 pageviews,5757 unique pageviews
According to awstats,in 8 august 2015,i dont know how many unique it was,but its reporting that : 1,747 visits it was.
And in 6 august 2015 Awstats,i dont know how many unique it was,but its reporting that : 3,406 visits it was.
I`m telling this,because AWSTAST,is too server side tracking.
On server side -visitator browser unknown for the date of 8 august 2015 is :1437 visits according to Piwik,i mentioned this,because from what i know,bots mostly does not have no language on browser.Maybe somebody can tell me if this visits with unknown language on browsers is from human or robots.
As you can see,there is alot of difference between JavaScript Tracking and Server Side Tracking.
I don`t trust the javascript based numbers tracking,and probably you will ask me,why?
The answer is very simple,im doing alot of Social networking marketing,and i have bit.ly on my links,on bit.ly i think everybody knows it,its used to shorten your link,but it also does provide data,about people who clicked on your shorten links.
On the date of 6 august it was : 525 clicks,that means mostly 525 visitators got into the website,and the javascript is saying 119 visits,so it`s totally wrong.
In javascript lets say it was 100 unique ,and in server side it was 2500 unique,that means an difference of 25x ,between javascript tracking and server side tracking,im asking you guys,do you think this is normally?!
It should be some differences between javascript and server side tracking,but i think i`m the first from the web,that i note this huge difference of 25x,others that i saw posting in webmasterworld,they see 5-6x difference in google.
What do you people think about this?And what do you trust your server logs or the front end tracked or not user?!
I also searched,and i think,it will be nice,if we can implement some kind of Hybrid Tracking : SERVER SIDE + JAVASCRIPT ,to use the benefit of both.
An feature,that google analytics won`t have ever and more accurate data.
I did find some very usefully info here,but i did not tested yet,what numbers that software it will report :
http://www.advancedwebstats.com/feats-tracking.html
Scenario displaying the tracking method: