Lean Analytics

Track your website’s pageviews and visitor statistics without cookies, personal data collection, or GDPR consent requirements. Get the insights you need while respecting visitor privacy and avoiding the complexity of traditional analytics.

Use Cases#

• Track pageviews and visitor trends without cookie consent banners
• Comply with GDPR/CCPA without sacrificing analytics
• Get simple, actionable metrics without data overload
• Reduce dependence on external analytics services
• Keep visitor data on your own server
• Analyze content performance across posts, pages, and custom post types

Where to Find It#

Navigate to Switchboard → Analytics to view your analytics dashboard with pageviews, visitors, popular pages, traffic sources, and more.

How It Works#

1. A lightweight JavaScript beacon tracks pageviews
2. Data is stored in your WordPress database (one table)
3. No cookies are set on visitor browsers
4. No personal data is collected or stored
5. View reports in the dedicated analytics dashboard

What Gets Tracked#

Privacy by Design#

Lean Analytics is built with privacy as the foundation:

No Cookies#

Unlike Google Analytics or similar tools, no cookies are set. This means:

• No cookie consent banners required
• No tracking across sessions
• No personal data collection

No Personal Data#

The module does NOT collect:

• IP addresses (not stored, only used temporarily for country detection)
• Names, emails, or identifiers
• Browsing history across sites
• Device fingerprints

Visitor Counting#

Unique visitors are estimated using a daily rotating hash that combines:

• Date
• User agent
• A random site-specific salt

This creates anonymous daily visitor counts without tracking individuals across sessions.

Settings#

Enabling Country Detection#

Country statistics require your site to be behind a CDN that provides geographic headers. The module reads the CF-IPCountry header automatically.

Setting Up with CloudFlare#

1. Add your site to CloudFlare (free plan works)
2. Enable the CloudFlare proxy (orange cloud icon)
3. CloudFlare automatically adds the CF-IPCountry header to requests
4. Enable “Country Detection” in module settings
5. Country data will appear in the Countries tab

Other CDN Providers#

Other CDNs that provide geo headers will also work. The module looks for the HTTP_CF_IPCOUNTRY server variable. If your CDN uses a different header, contact support for assistance.

Dashboard Overview#

The analytics dashboard shows:

Quick Stats#

• Total Pageviews: All-time or selected period
• Unique Visitors: Estimated visitor count
• Pages per Visit: Average pages viewed per session
• Bounce Rate: Percentage of single-page visits

Date Range Selection#

Choose from preset ranges:

• Today / Yesterday
• This Week / Last Week
• This Month / Last Month
• Last 30 / 90 / 365 Days
• This Year / Last Year
• All Time

Content Analytics#

The dashboard includes dedicated tabs for analyzing different content types:

Posts Tab#

View analytics for your blog posts:

• Post title with link to view
• Total pageviews
• Unique visits
• Sorted by most viewed

Pages Tab#

View analytics for your static pages:

• Page title with link to view
• Total pageviews
• Unique visits
• Sorted by most viewed

Other Content Tab#

View analytics for custom post types (WooCommerce products, portfolio items, etc.):

• Content title with link
• Post type label (Product, Portfolio, etc.)
• Total pageviews
• Unique visits

This is especially useful for:

• E-commerce sites: See which products get the most views
• Portfolio sites: Track which projects attract attention
• Membership sites: Monitor course or lesson popularity
• Directory sites: Identify popular listings

Traffic Sources#

Referrers Tab#

See where your traffic comes from:

• Domain names of referring sites
• Pageviews from each source
• Visits from each source

Campaigns Tab#

Track UTM-tagged marketing campaigns:

Example URL:

https://yoursite.com/page?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch

Entry Pages#

See which pages visitors land on first. Useful for:

• Identifying effective landing pages
• Understanding how visitors find your site
• Optimizing high-traffic entry points

Exit Pages#

See which pages visitors leave from. Useful for:

• Identifying pages that may need improvement
• Understanding visitor journey endpoints
• Finding opportunities to add calls-to-action

Geographic Data#

Countries Tab#

When country detection is enabled (requires CloudFlare or similar CDN):

• Two-letter country codes
• Pageviews per country
• Visits per country
• Sorted by traffic volume

Device Breakdown#

The overview shows device distribution:

• Desktop: Traditional computers
• Mobile: Smartphones
• Tablet: iPads and similar devices

Use this to prioritize responsive design efforts.

Hourly Traffic#

View traffic patterns by hour to understand:

• Peak activity times
• Best times to publish content
• Server load patterns

Bot Filtering#

When enabled, the module filters out known bots and crawlers:

• Search engine crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.)
• Social media crawlers (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• SEO tools (Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz)
• Monitoring services
• Common scraping libraries

This keeps your analytics focused on real human visitors.

Do Not Track (DNT)#

When “Respect DNT” is enabled:

• Visitors with DNT enabled in their browser are not tracked
• This honors user privacy preferences
• Recommended to keep enabled for maximum privacy compliance

Data Retention#

Configure how long to keep analytics data:

Older data is automatically deleted daily via WordPress cron.

Export Data#

Export your analytics data for:

• Backup purposes
• External analysis in spreadsheets
• Reporting to clients or stakeholders

Click “Export” in the dashboard to download CSV files.

Performance#

The analytics system is designed to be lightweight:

• Minimal JavaScript: Small beacon script (~2KB)
• Async loading: Doesn’t block page rendering
• Indexed database: Fast queries even with millions of rows
• Batch cleanup: Automatic pruning of old data

Comparison with Google Analytics#

Lean Analytics trades advanced features for simplicity and privacy.

FAQ#