GoatCounter documentation
Other documentation pages:
GDPR consent notices
| Site integration code
| API
| Privacy policy
| Terms of use
FAQ
General
- I don’t see my pageviews? §
- For reasons of efficiency the statistics are updated once every 10
seconds.
- What does (no data) mean in the referrers list? §
- No Referer was sent; this can mean that the user directly accessed the
URL (e.g. from their bookmarks or typing it), that they disabled sending the
Referer header, or that the link they clicked on disabled the Referer header
with
rel="noreferer".
- How are bots and crawlers counted? §
- They’re not; all bots and crawlers that identify themselves as such are ignored.
It’s easy for a malicious script to disguise itself as Firefox or
Chrome, and it’s hard to reliably detect this. In practice it’s unlikely
that 100% of all bots are ignored (this is a general problem with
analytics, and not specific to GoatCounter).
- How is the
Do-Not-Track header handled? §
- It’s ignored for several reasons: it’s effectively abandoned with a low
adoption rate, mostly intended for persistent cross-site tracking (which
GoatCounter doesn’t do), and I feel there are some fundamental concerns
with the approach. See
Why GoatCounter ignores Do Not Track
for a more in-depth explanation.
You can still implement it yourself by putting this at the start of the
GoatCounter script:
<script>
window.goatcounter = {
no_onload: ('doNotTrack' in navigator && navigator.doNotTrack === '1'),
};
</script>
<script data-goatcounter="[..]"
async src="//gc.zgo.at/count.js"></script>
- What about GDPR consent notices? §
- You probably don’t need them. The the GDPR page goes in to some detail about this.
- How do I set up a custom domain? §
-
Add a
CNAME record pointing to your GoatCounter subdomain:
stats IN CNAME mine.goatcounter.com.
Then update the GoatCounter settings with your custom domain. It might
take a few hours for everything to work. mine.goatcounter.com
will continue to work.
You will need a Business plan to set up a custom domain.
Note that Custom domains will not prevent adblockers from
recognizing GoatCounter; it’s only intended as a “vanity domain”.
- How do adblockers deal with GoatCounter? §
-
Most of them block goatcounter.com; there’s not much that can be done
about that, and there’s also not much I want to do about this.
If people decide they want to block GoatCounter then they’re free to do
so.
By my estimate about a third of pageviews are missed due to adblockers;
but this can vary greatly on the type of site and audience.
That said, there are some options:
- Self-host GoatCounter; when self-hosting GoatCounter nothing is
served from goatcounter.com or associated domains, and
adblockers will not block it.
- Import pageviews from logfiles; GoatCounter can import pageviews
from web server logfiles; you can send this data to
goatcounter.com. See the documentation for details.
- Is there any way to record HTTP status codes? §
-
Not directly, but if you include the status code in your error page’s
title you can filter by it. Also see
issue #3.
- Why do I need to verify my email? §
-
Having some means of contact is useful in case of questions, problems,
or other reasons for communicating.
For example, if you’re sending many (millions) of pageviews then I’d rather
contact you to discuss options than just shut down the account. Not
having any means to get in touch would leave me in an awkward position.
Pricing and billing
- What happens if I go over the monthly pageviews? §
- I’ll be in touch if you consistently go over the number over pageviews;
there is no automated process to shut down accounts. It’s not a problem
if you go over the pageviews in a single spike of traffic because you
wrote something that got shared a lot. It’s a flexible limit within the
bounds of reason.
- How does “maximum pageviews” work? §
- It’s the total amount of pageviews that can be stored for your site. The
oldest pageviews will be deleted if you try to store more. There is no
timelimit on pageviews: just a maximum total.
If you’ve reached the maximum amount of pageviews you will get an email where you can make a choice:
- I’m okay with this, just delete older pageviews and stop bothering me.
- Update your plan.
- Manually delete older pageviews, which might be useful if you have a lot of “junk” data that’s not really needed.
It will keep sending you this email every week until you make a
decision. If you haven’t done anything after a month then it will assume
option 1.
New pageviews will never be rejected if you go over your limit.
The limits are calibrated as such:
- Free plan: two years at maximum pageviews.
- Starter and business plans: four years at maximum pageviews.
Many sites will never reach these limits, as they send far fewer than
the maximum pageviews.
-
Additional pageviews can be added for €0.20 per 10k pageviews, so 100k
pageviews would be €2, 1 million pageviews €20, and 10 million pageviews
€200. This can be added to every plan excluding the free one. For
example if you want ~200k pageviews on the Starter plan then you’ll be
charged €5 + €2.
This is charged based on actual usage, rounded to the nearest 10k. So
for example for the Starter plan you’ll be charged €5 + €0.20 × 10 = €7
if you have 200k pageviews.
This does not affect the maximum pageview limit; this remains
the same. You need to update your plan if you want a higher limit for
this.
Extra charges will only be made if you set it up on the billing page,
where you can also set a maximum. I’ll be in touch if you don’t set this
up or set the maximum too low. Pageviews will never be rejected if you
go over a limit. I generally use a bit of a “grace margin” for this as
getting in touch over a few thousand pageviews is a bit silly, and I’m
not a big fan of automating these kind of things as I feel takes away
some humanity of the company/customer relationship.
Going over the allotted amount of pageviews for only 1 or 2 months is
fine; sometimes websites get shared a lot for a short period of time and
calm back down afterwards. It makes no sense to upgrade your plan for
just this. Skirting the pageviews is fine too; if you have 950k one
month and 1050k the next then that’s fine; as long as it roughly
averages out to the limit.
- What is “Commercial Use”? §
- A website is considered “commercial” if the primary goal is to sell or
advertise paid products or services.
There is a large amount of grey area between strictly ‘personal’ and
‘commercial’; for example selling a service as a side-project which
provides just a little bit of pocket money is ‘commercial’, but also
‘personal’. As a rule, things like “pocket-money side-projects” are
considered personal, especially if they’re open source. Just get in
touch if you’re unsure and I’ll tell you if it’s considered personal.
- What is the advantage of a custom domain? §
- It’s just intended as a nice “vanity domain”; other than that there are
no real technical advantages. It will not prevent adblockers
from recognizing GoatCounter and this was never the intended use case.
See How do adblockers deal with GoatCounter? for more details.
- Is there any discount for charities, non-profit organisations, startups, etc? §
-
The short answer is ”not really”. The longer answer is that it depends
on the individual case.
To give an example, Amnesty International is undoubtedly a charity doing
great work, and I’d be honoured to facilitate that. But they also have a
~€300 million/year income and asking them for €30/month so I can make a
living seems reasonable to me, regardless of their charitable work.
After all, people employed by Amnesty are getting paid too, and I also
need to pay my rent, food, etc. 😅
Most charities don’t have the kind of endowment Amnesty has, so if
you’re running a small charity, non-profit, or one-person startup where
GoatCounter’s costs would be prohibitive then feel free to get in touch
and we’ll see what we can arrange. Generally I’m pretty flexible.
I’ll be happy to revisit this policy once GoatCounter starts becoming
financially sustainable, but right now it’s still quite far from that.