Analytics in WordPress?

  • jonthomaswp

    (@jonthomaswp)


    5 years ago

    Hi, not sure where this would go on this forum so sorry if this is not the place? I want to add Analytics to my wordpress, I did it through the analytics site but wondering if I need to actually install the plugin on my wordpress back end?
    Thanks.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • In order for Google Analytics to work, you just need to include some Javascript in each html-page your server sends to your visitors.
    You can include this Javascript using any of a large number of specialised plugins, you can write your own small plugin, you can include it in the templates for your (child) theme, etc.

    After you’ve done that, visitors web browsers will ping the servers of GA so that the latter can collect information about visits to your site, and you’ll be able to see the gathered statistics on the site of GA.

    IF you want to include some of this information in the admin panel of your own site, then there are various plugins that can help you with that, too (in addition to just including the GA Javascript code in every page sent to your visitors), but that’s optional.

    No, this is definitely not the right place. I am thinking this should have gone into “everything else WordPress”.

    You don’t have to install the plugin, except you want to view your analytics data in your WordPress dashboard. Ensure you’ve added the analytics tracking code to your site, once you’ve done that, you can access the analytics data on the platform’s website.

    Thread Starter jonthomaswp

    (@jonthomaswp)

    I have just added Monsterinsights, is this really required? Wants all my data!

    It’s not really required as explained earlier. You can add your Google Analytics tracking code to the header.php of your site and access your analytics data in your Google Analytics dashboard on the platform’s website.

    Adding an analytics plugin is needed when you want to access your analytics data in your WordPress dashboard or just need an easy way to verify GA.

    Thread Starter jonthomaswp

    (@jonthomaswp)

    Edite: Header.php thanks.

    Will that be ok if and when I update the theme?

    @jonthomaswp If you edit directly a template file of your current theme, then those changes are wiped out when your theme is updated.

    Either use a plugin (that will use WordPress’ system of hooks and filters to inject your code at the right place), or use a Child theme where you put your version of header.php (or whatever may be the right filename in order to put some code just before the </head> tag.

    Thread Starter jonthomaswp

    (@jonthomaswp)

    @tobifjellner thanks. All a little new to me. Makes no point adding php if it will need updating every time.
    Maybe just leave as it is with the monsterinsights plugin for now? As that links it up yes?
    Thank you also.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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