+1 for directly incorporating Google Analytics. I use GA in my blog now, but it doesn't track RSS. Would love to see it integrated so RSS is tracked as well.
On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Glen Mazza <glen.ma...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Team, building on the referrers/tracking issue we discussed last August: > > 1.) I think we should more smoothly support Google Analytics tracking (or > any other company's tracking[2][3], the configuration should work the same) > by providing a "tracking key" field configurable at both the blog admin and > individual blog level setting screen. The "tracking key" value at the blog > admin level will serve as the default for all blogs unless overridden at > the blog-level; also, the blog admin configuration will have a yes/no > checkbox on whether to allow individual blog overrides; if "no" the option > to provide a tracking key will not appear at the blog level. (This catch > will be imperfect as users can still override the tracking key by altering > their templates if the admin gives them the ability to alter their own > templates.) Then, I'll provide a velocity macro that will output either > the admin-level or individual-blog level tracking key based on the logic > above, and add that macro to each of the themes that Roller ships with that > macro. How does this all sound? > > 2.) Wordpress' direction seems to be to directly incorporate Google > Analytics, having both free (http://wordpress.org/plugins/ > google-analytics-for-wordpress/) and paid (https://premium.wpmudev.org/ > project/google-analytics-for-wordpress-mu-sitewide-and- > single-blog-solution/) options, rather than roll-their-own like we do > with our referral tracking. We don't incorporate GA like they do, but > that's OK for now as it's easy to log into Google Analytics anyway. > > I'm wondering if after #1 above is done if this would be a good time to > remove Roller's home-grown embedded referral tracking. What we presently > have--a tracker that keeps just the last 24 hours before resetting to zero, > is not in the same league with Google Analytics or other specialized tools > today in terms of its mining and data storage capabilities and we may be > doing more harm than good to the project by retaining it (if the > functionality is not core, as here, it's frequently better to have nothing > and instead integrate well with third party specialized tools than retain > something that's missing too much to be useful.) As Dave mentioned earlier > our homegrown product does allow bloggers to attach referrers to each blog > entry during the 24 hours (something we would lose if we got rid of it) but > I don't know of anyone doing that today, Roller or any other blogging tool. > > I think it's safe to say nobody here has the time or inclination to > improve on our home-grown referrer tracking while there are so many fine > 3rd party tools already out there giving us what we need. Removing it > pushes the focus towards improving Roller's ability to integrate with 3rd > party trackers and put energy instead into more fruitful areas of the code > (theme modernization and planet functionality improvement in particular) > Strategically, it doesn't seem good for a webapp to roll-its-own referrer > tracking; either the homegrown referrer tracking ends up looking subpar to > the 3rd party specialized tools, or so much effort is made trying to > duplicate specialized products that the core functionality of the > WAR--i.e., for us, a blogging tool--suffers. WDYT? If team members are > still unsure, we can table this issue for another year, or what we can do > is delete it in trunk but be open to restoring it if we get sufficient > clamor for its return. > > Regards, > Glen > > [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2051368/4-simpler- > alternatives-to-google-analytics.html > [2] http://piwik.org/what-is-piwik/ > >
