About The Web Analytics I Use

I like to develop website. I also like to write blogs, poems, post mortem, thoughts, tutorial, anything. I enjoy doing those things that even if I cannot publish (some of) them, I’ve got more experience and I feel good.

But.

Let’s be real here. I have itches. Curiosity. Social needs? Maybe, but I try avoid social media, or silo  — as the IndieWeb folks call it. I try to serve this site keeping my ethic¹ and readers’ privacy. I also want to know whether anyone read my posts, and I want my works to be assessed by fellow readers. The assessment can be as simple as likes and thumb-ups (Luke Smith hilariously calls them upcummies²). The assessment can also be comments or text feedbacks, this is what I prefer the most.

With the stuff I just told you in mind, I decided that I will implement analytic³ and response system to this site. So I researched for the tools. The main requirements are lightweight and respects users’ privacy.

For the response system, I found WebMention  , which leads me to know more about IndieWeb  . The current candidate for the direct commenting system is Isso  . The first I implemented is web analytics. Already suggested in this post’s title, I use GoatCounter.

## About GoatCounter #

GoatCounter  is web analytics by Martin Tournoij or arp242  . It is lightweight, it is easy to implement, and it respects users’ privacy. See its privacy policy here  .

One embarassing thing is that I follow Martin’s RSS Feed for so long, but I didn’t read about his latest project. Before GoatCounter, I tried StatCounter  and opted-out shortly because I think the settings page is clumsy. I searched for another good alternatives that results none. Just last monday I see Martin published a new post about GoatCounter update. I decided to check it and that day, I tried GoatCounter.

You can see my instance of GoatCounter on ybbond.goatcounter.com !

I made it open for everyone and set obvious statement down in the footer, because I think however small the data I take from user visits, the users should be able to know about it.