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Parse your server's access log file. The way it had been done for decades. "Analog" was popular then, Should be better options now.

by z92 6y ago

jaywalk 6y ago
My server's access logs are almost useless when I've got an SPA with a significant amount of client-side functionality.
- sim_card_map 6y ago
  Don't use SPAs, switch back to traditional server side rendering.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    No.
    - arcturus17 6y ago
      Succinct, but straight to the point.
- eggtro 6y ago
  Well that's your own fault for using inferior technologies.
zserge 6y ago
I have been using this for a while, GoAccess is a wonderful little tool to automate the parsing. Highly recommend to those who prefer the old-school approach towards web analytics. https://goaccess.io/ https://goaccess.io/
- itwy 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing this.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  I started running goaccess on the reverse proxy in front of computer.rip and some other sites just a few weeks ago... it has answered basically every question I've wanted from simple website analytics and it was very fast to set up and very response. Just a great tool all around.
maple3142 6y ago
But this doesn't work for people hosting their static websites on GitHub Pages, Netlify...
mschuster91 6y ago
Access logs are almost useless for analytics these days... all they give you is the URL that was visited and some extremely rough idea what OS and browser the client is using (UA parsing is a hellhole). You don't get any more detailed information (e.g. device class, screen size/orientation) from analytics logs. Also, if you're using one of the free hosting providers (GH Pages and the likes) you're not even going to get access logs.
- bogwog 6y ago
  I wonder if you could use CSS media queries to collect additional data about device characteristics, by linking to different URLs at different breakpoints? Like a breakpoint for portrait mode would set the background of something to an image that's just a 1x1 pixel. So when that resource is accessed, you know the request came from a device in portrait. I guess it depends on how different browsers decide to access resource urls in CSS files. If a browser just downloads everything first, and then processes the media queries, then it wouldn't work.
- mobjack 6y ago
  You get most of the value from the UA from just seeing if someone is on a mobile phone or desktop device. That is easy to parse. Most of the other metrics are noise and don't impact business decisions.
Closi 6y ago
> Parse your server's access log file. The way it had been done for decades. "Analog" was popular then, Should be better options now. It depends how much data you want. Google Analytics can give you all sorts of juicy privacy-invading (but totally fine because its aggregated) data about your users which you won't get parsing the servers access log.

Parse your server's access log file. The way it had been done for decades. "Analog" was popular then, Should be better options now.

by z92 6y ago

Parse your server's access log file. The way it had been done for decades. "Analog" was popular then, Should be better options now.

jaywalk 6y ago

My server's access logs are almost useless when I've got an SPA with a significant amount of client-side functionality.

sim_card_map 6y ago
Don't use SPAs, switch back to traditional server side rendering.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  No.
  - arcturus17 6y ago
    Succinct, but straight to the point.
eggtro 6y ago
Well that's your own fault for using inferior technologies.

zserge 6y ago

I have been using this for a while, GoAccess is a wonderful little tool to automate the parsing. Highly recommend to those who prefer the old-school approach towards web analytics. https://goaccess.io/ https://goaccess.io/

itwy 6y ago
Thank you for sharing this.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
I started running goaccess on the reverse proxy in front of computer.rip and some other sites just a few weeks ago... it has answered basically every question I've wanted from simple website analytics and it was very fast to set up and very response. Just a great tool all around.

maple3142 6y ago

But this doesn't work for people hosting their static websites on GitHub Pages, Netlify...

mschuster91 6y ago

Access logs are almost useless for analytics these days... all they give you is the URL that was visited and some extremely rough idea what OS and browser the client is using (UA parsing is a hellhole). You don't get any more detailed information (e.g. device class, screen size/orientation) from analytics logs. Also, if you're using one of the free hosting providers (GH Pages and the likes) you're not even going to get access logs.

bogwog 6y ago
I wonder if you could use CSS media queries to collect additional data about device characteristics, by linking to different URLs at different breakpoints? Like a breakpoint for portrait mode would set the background of something to an image that's just a 1x1 pixel. So when that resource is accessed, you know the request came from a device in portrait. I guess it depends on how different browsers decide to access resource urls in CSS files. If a browser just downloads everything first, and then processes the media queries, then it wouldn't work.
mobjack 6y ago
You get most of the value from the UA from just seeing if someone is on a mobile phone or desktop device. That is easy to parse. Most of the other metrics are noise and don't impact business decisions.

Closi 6y ago

> Parse your server's access log file. The way it had been done for decades. "Analog" was popular then, Should be better options now. It depends how much data you want. Google Analytics can give you all sorts of juicy privacy-invading (but totally fine because its aggregated) data about your users which you won't get parsing the servers access log.