On 30 July 2014 09:34, Mike Griffiths <mgriffi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 30 July 2014 09:08, Peter Cowburn <petercowb...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> >> >> On 30 July 2014 08:08, Mike Griffiths <mgriffi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I would like to broach the subject of introducing some sort of analytics >>> package, such as Google Analytics, to the PHP.net website and its sister >>> sites. >>> >>> I personally believe this would be of huge benefit to lots of us, as >>> currently there is little to no way (that I'm aware of) of viewing useful >>> statistics and metrics on our visitors. >>> >>> Hannes and I spoke about this last night, and he is against the idea of >>> using a third party package to do this, and would rather write something. >>> Personally I think something like Analytics would be far more powerful >>> and >>> versatile than that, and will take a matter of minutes to get up and >>> running. It's also pretty easy to share with anyone who wants to see it. >>> >>> The kind of useful information I'd like to see, which is only what comes >>> to >>> mind initially, I'm sure there's far more once we delve deeper into it: >>> - The docs pages with the highest bounce rates, top x pages. It's likely >>> these don't have the right information, or it could be that it has the >>> best >>> information and that's why people leave quickly. >>> - Docs pages with the longest visit time. Ties in with the above point, >>> and could highlight problems - users could be spending time reading the >>> notes to try and find what they need. >>> - Visibility of our most popular pages >>> - What are people searching for in search engines to find us? Can we >>> identify common user typos and try to handle them better? >>> - What percentages of our users are on X browser version (this would have >>> been valuable when we had our recent design change) >>> - Is there a news item gathering a lot of attention at the moment? Can >>> we >>> identify what makes a news item popular vs something that no one is >>> particularly interested in? >>> - How much traffic do we get across all of the mirrors? Is there a >>> particular mirror that is more popular than others? >>> >>> I believe that metrics like this can help us identify the areas of the >>> site >>> which need more attention, and can benefit everyone involved with the >>> project with their individual tasks. >>> >>> I guess there are a couple of options available to us: >>> 1. Write something ourselves. I doubt this will ever come close to >>> being >>> as detailed as we would like, and the amount of data we would need to >>> store >>> in order to report on certain aspects makes this quite a monumental task. >>> 2. Use Google Analytics, or something similar. Hannes voiced privacy >>> concerns over using Google Analytics, which are concerns I don't share, >>> but >>> it would be great to hear everyone's opinion on it. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Mike (mikemike) >> >> >>> -- >>> >>> Mike Griffiths - Web Dev Weekly <http://webdevweekly.com> >>> mgriffi...@gmail.com >>> >> >> >> Having some shiny set of analytics always seems like a good idea but, >> when we have it, it doesn't get used a whole heap and eventually it goes >> away and no-one minds much. For the most recent example, during the >> redesign we used GoSquared which has lots of bells and whistles, and didn't >> tell us anything we didn't already know. >> >> Also, IIRC some mirrors make their awstats available, which would provide >> a sample of visitors. Until relatively recently, we were also tracking >> searches to see what people were looking for most. This did prove useful >> in the sense that we could (once in a blue moon) target specific pages for >> improvement, or add helpful redirects. But that is a very targeted tool >> which did a simple job (and did it well), which is a whole different ball >> game from Track All The Things that GA provides. >> >> >> > Well I've had an email this morning from someone saying we used to have > GoSquared, and it was very useful and used often, but unfortunately it was > removed by someone who didn't use it. > > I don't know who emailed you, but it was indeed useful and was used often... by three people... for a few weeks.
> I'd be happy if GoSquared was re-instated. Google Analytics is the market > leader, so it's the example I used, but I don't mind what it is that's used. > My main concern is introducing something that affects every single user visiting php.net, and on every single visit, for something that one or two people might look at once a month or less. Don't forget that we are already logging lots of information that could be collated and presented somewhere centrally (say, a new page on master) with zero impact on the site. > > > > -- > > Mike Griffiths > mgriffi...@gmail.com >
