Analytics and visitor statistics
This page is for project managers, communication teams and data protection officers. Public bodies need to know which services people use and what they cannot find; they also have to respect visitors' privacy. Exponential offers some statistics of its own; a full analytics service is an extension and a third party (Visitor statistics and analytics).
Note This page describes features and common practice; it is not legal advice. Check the law that applies to your organization with your legal counsel.
Contents
What Exponential records itself
| Source | What | Personal data |
|---|---|---|
| Search statistics | phrases, counts, average results; off by default (LogSearchStats) | phrases can contain names |
| View counts | page views per node, counted by the updateviewcount cron part from the access log | none stored per visitor |
| Request logs | not-found and attack requests, masked | masked addresses |
| Audit trail | administration activity | staff data |
These answer operational questions; they are not an analytics service.
bcwebsitestatistics and Google Analytics
The extension adds the Google Analytics script to pages and can report shop orders through the ezreceipt workflow
type (bcwebsitestatistics). Settings in
settings/override/bcwebsitestatistics.ini.append.php; always set Urchin to your own property. Per the project's
privacy statement, it has no consent gate of its own.
Privacy steps
- Decide the purpose and the legal basis with your DPO.
- Load the script only after consent where consent is needed (see "Cookie banners and consent").
- Configure the service for minimal data (its own settings, such as address shortening, where it offers them).
- Name the service, the data and the recipient in the privacy notice.
- Under a Content Security Policy, allow the service's hosts in
script-srcandconnect-srcfor the public siteaccess, and move any inline snippet into a file. - Reconsider yearly whether the figures are used.
Alternatives: self-hosted analytics, aggregated server logs, and Exponential's own search statistics (reset regularly).
Related pages
- Visitor statistics and analytics
- Third-party extensions and privacy
- Search phrases
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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