Forum Moderators: DixonJones
I've seen enough complaints about Google Analytics that I think I'll pass on that option.
I know there are third-party services that purport to detect click-fraud. But I don't want to rely on a third-party, and click-fraud detection is not my main goal. It would be nice, though, to have this as a feature.
I want to set up my own site that will forward to the parent company and thus capture these stats. I checked with a Google rep, and this type of forwarding is in compliance with the TOS. I imagine I will use mod-rewrite for the forwarding?
I have a decent knowledge of Unix administration and programming. I'm getting a virtual server (Xen-based) to do this as well as some other websites.
I'd be interested in any pointers and gotchas from those who have set up something like this. Are there any specific features I should enable or disable for logging? Obviously, I want to log referrers. Anything else of particular concern?
I imagine I have a wide range of analysis packages to choose from. Do I just use the standard log files, and assume that the analysis packages will read that? Then I can just try different ones until I find one I like. Or do some have their own logging format and will require an associated logging module, so I'd better plan in advance for that?
There are also some macro substitutions I can do in the URL on adwords to include the keyword, etc. for analysis. Is it common for analysis packages to be able to work with these? They would be included as URL parameters. So, I'd like to be able to get reports based on specific keyword parameters included in the URLs.
Not sure if the TOS of this forum permits this, but if it does, I'd appreciate recommendations of specific free, open-source packages that would be useful for this.
