How to add Google Analytics to Joomla

Today we're going to answer a very straight forward question that we have been asked: "How can I add Google Analytics to Joomla?"

Google Analytics is a free website tracking tool which helps you understand your website's visitor. We highly recommend it, and in this post will run you through how to add Google Analytics to either Joomla 1.5 or Joomla 1.0.1x.

We have broken down the answer of this question into two steps:

1. Create a Google Analytics account
2. Add the Analytics code to your Joomla template

Create a Google Analytics account

Go to the Google Analytics website and sign up for account.

Once you've followed the registration process you will come to a page where you are given a tracking code to add to each page of your website. If you are given the choice to choose between the new tracking code (ga.js) or the old tracking code (urchin.js) choose the new tracking code.

Keep this webpage open with the tracking code on as we're going to need it in a few minutes.

Add the Analytics tracking code to your Joomla template

Adding the analytics tracking code to your Joomla website is really easy. We're going to show you how to do this through logging in to the administrator backend and editing your template's HTML.

In Joomla 1.0.1x

If you are using Joomla 1.0.10, 1.0.11, 1.0.12, 1.0.13, 1.0.14 or 1.0.15 do the following:

• Log on to: www.yoursite.com/administrator/
• In the top menu select: "Site" > "Template Manager" > "Site Templates"
• Then select the template which is marked as default and click "Edit HTML"

In Joomla 1.5

If you are using Joomla 1.5, 1.51 do the following:

• Log on to: www.yoursite.com/administrator/
• In the top menu select: "Extensions" > "Template Manager"
• Now select the template which is marked as default and click "Edit"
• In the template edit page click "Edit HTML"

Adding the code within the template

If you have followed the steps above you should now be looking at your template's HTML.

• Scroll right down to the bottom of all this code
• On the second to bottom line you should see the tag </body>
• You need to paste your Google Analytics tracking code just before this tag
• Now press "save" and Google Analytics is installed on your website!

Here is a screenshot of the HTML of a template before we added the Google Analytics code:

And here is the HTML after we added Google Analytics code:

We look forward to answering your questions and reading your comments...

Rajesh March 19, 2008 Votes: -1	Hi Nice article. report abuse vote down vote up
David T March 19, 2008 Votes: +0	Thanks Rajesh! report abuse vote down vote up
raman March 26, 2008 Votes: +0	Very simple and effective content about joomla. Will be very useful for budding web masters. Thanks report abuse vote down vote up
Prinson March 29, 2008 Votes: +1	Thanks for your help. I appreciate it very much report abuse vote down vote up
Greg April 07, 2008 Votes: +0	Thank you very much! I originally downloaded a module that supposedly made this process easy. It didn't make it easy, because there was a lack of documentation, and it only supported the legacy mode of Google Analytics. In contrast, your post was a simple solution. Thanks again! report abuse vote down vote up
Javier Giron April 15, 2008 Votes: +0	i added the code exactly as you said, but it still didnt work. GA doesnt recognize that the code has been added. Please advice me what to do. Thanks! report abuse vote down vote up
Tamara April 16, 2008 Votes: +0	Hi, It takes a day for GA to track info. Try checking tomorrow for your stats report abuse vote down vote up
Rob April 17, 2008 Votes: +0	The next problem, once Analytics was collecting data, was that all of the page names show up in the reports as: "index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126&Itemid=87..." Hovering over the names in the reports will add the article ID but good luck working out which page that is off the top of your head! Is there a way to make Joomla or Google use the Article name or something more friendly in the report? report abuse vote down vote up
David T April 17, 2008 Votes: +0	Thanks for posting Raman, Prinson Greg, Javier, Tamara and Rob! Javier have your stats appeared yet? Tamara's right, there is usually a lag of about a day. Rob if you use sh404sef to make your URLs search engine friendly, you won't have this problems anymore. Why not try installing the sh404sef extension on your website? report abuse vote down vote up
nitin June 14, 2008 Votes: +0	thanks the article rocks report abuse vote down vote up
Rakesh July 04, 2008 Votes: +0	Thanks David T, For Starting such a nice post on Google Analytics, I also installed GA and waiting for a day as said visitors above to detect code by GA. report abuse vote down vote up
aa July 22, 2008 Votes: +0	thank you, great article, very helpfull report abuse vote down vote up
ja July 24, 2008 Votes: +1	Ovo ti je dobar članak lafe. Hvala. This is good article pal. Das ist sehr gut Information Kamarad. report abuse vote down vote up

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