Google Analytics is no doubt one of the most used and popular web analytics program. But what if you want to have own tracking system installed on your site. Reason for this requirement may be the privacy of data and reports. In that case, You may go for an open source web analytics software program which will be installed on your site and will produce some really useful tracking data in a report format.
Piwik is an open source program to track traffic on a particular site or set of sites. This platform will be installed on your server and track the traffic on your sites by adding a ‘JavaScript code’ generated out of the platform. Here is demo of the Analytics Platform created from Piwik,
Demo of Piwik Analytics
Why an Open Source Program rather than Google Analytics
As I told earlier that Google Analytics is a nice platform for tracking the traffic and analysis but in some cases, if you don’t want to store your information on Google’s server or if you are not having access to analytics in your office or place where you are suppose to go thru the reports. In that case you can go for this software/platform which will be installed on your server only.
How to install Piwik on your Server:
Installing Piwik is really easy and will not take more than 15 minutes for complete installation of this open source project. Here is the step by step guide to do the same,
1. Download Piwik’s latest version
2. Unzip the folder to get extracted Piwik folder
3. FTP the files of Piwik folder to a destination as per your choice. For example, Yourdomain.com/analytics
4. Now access the same URL on browser
5. Welcome screen of Piwik will appear where you need to click on Next button to proceed
6. System check process will be completed by Piwik on your server. If everything seems OK then proceed by clicking on “Next”
7. Create a separate database for Piwik on your server thru MySQL and assign a Username and Password to that MySQL Database. Click on Next.
8. Now create a Username and Password to access Piwik on your server. This will be treated as “Admin” ID
9. Add the site name and URL for the site you want to track thru Piwik
10. Piwik will generate a tracking code (JavaScript Code) which should be pasted on site template (on every page). If you war using WordPress or any other dynamic site then add this tracking code in footer.php
11. Done. Now you can access Piwik on the location where you have installed it.
There are lot many features in Piwik. You may try using it without any installation on this demo link. Share your thoughts about this fabulous platform. API for this platform is also available which can be used to get reports on Excel or any other documentation program. You may access the API on Google Docs as well.