Description: GoatCounter offers a free, hosted option for personal and non-commercial use.
Setup
- Sign up for a free account at GoatCounter.
- Copy the JavaScript tracking code provided.
- Add the script to your Quartz site’s head.html or equivalent template.
Features
- Pageviews, referrers, browsers.
- Free for personal use (under limits).
Why it’s great: No self-hosting (though, that option is available as well), respects privacy, easy integration.
The author (https://www.arp242.net/personal-analytics.html) has an interesting blog post titled “Analytics on personal sites” where he shares his thought on why analytics on personal websites are indeed helpful.
Some key points that resonated with me include
“It’s sometimes useful to have an indication what people are reading, or if anyone is reading something at all.” “It’s just useful to know how popular such projects are before I choose to spend more time on them.” After you spent quite a bit of your spare time writing an article it’s just nice to know people are actually reading it. There’s nothing wrong with being validated – it’s a basic psychological need and I’m not a fan of casually dismissing it.
It’s for the above exact reasons I wanted to add tracking to my personal site, and stumbled upon this tool (as I was looking for a tool that’s open source, yet gives out-of-the-box solution), and ended up using it.