Wyodor On The Web

iWeb : Adding Google Analytics without editing the webpage

Google Analytics is a service that tracks the visitors of your webpage and provides information about where they come from, what pages they visit, what they use as Operating System and Browser and how long they stayed on your website. And a lot more.

Google uses JavaScript code which you have to paste in the webpage.

iWeb has no way of adding this to the webpage. After publishing you must open the html file in a plaintext editor and paste the code before the </body> HTML element. Then save the page.

Everytime you edit the page in iWeb, you have to edit the published page again to add the code.

Rather cumbersome.

Here's how you can add the code with the HTML Snippet.

Go to Google Analytics and sign-up for an account if you haven't already done that.

Create a new profile for your website.

It will provide you with a Webuser ID and the JavaScript code :

<script type="text/javascript">

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxxxx-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

</script>

Open a plaintext document (I use Fraise, formerly Smultron) and paste the code without these lines :

<script type="text/javascript">
</script>

Save the file as plaintext and give it a meaningful name : I use analytics.js

Connect to your webserver and create a folder in the root of the server and put the file in it. I call this folder js.

Open iWeb and select the Site and page you want to track.

Add the HTML Snippet and paste this code :

<script type="text/javascript">

var bodyID = parent.document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0];

var newScript = parent.document.createElement('script');
newScript.type = 'text/javascript';
newScript.src = '/js/analytics.js';
bodyID.appendChild(newScript);

</script>

Publish the page and open it in the browser. In Safari open the Activity window (Command-Option-A).

Check to see that the /js/analytics.js file is loaded correctly and a very long URL to Google is present.

The newScript.src = '/js/analytics.js'; only works when you have your own domain.

If you use both web.me.com/username and Personal domain, use newScript.src = '../js/analytics.js'; for non-blog pages and newScript.src = '../../js/analytics.js'; with the main blog page.

And again, verify it.