JoomlaWatch Gives You a Complete Picture of Web Statistics

JoomlaWatch is a sophisticated component that monitors web statistics in real time such as unique website visitors and bots directly from the administration section of Joomla. It also ships with modules for front page functionality. The following info is collected: IP addresses, countries, geographical locations on google maps, which articles of your Joomal site have been viewed, browsers used, etc. In the Joomla frontend, it can show the top countries, user and visit information in module positions.

An Example of the Statistics Overview

We particularly like the presentation of the statistics and visitor information. An interesting requirement of the license agreement when you install the component is that a privacy statement be included in your site - like ours - that explains to visitors what collected data is used for. We are all for transparency and like the idea of educating folks that privacy is important on the Internet as well.

JoomlaWatch creates daily and all-time stats for unique, pageload and total hits statistics. The component also gives you the opportunity to block harmful IP addresses, see blocked attempts stats, evaluate the trend charts, and create goals based on many parameters. It even allows you to set visitor goals and produces maps where the IP of visitors is located.

Codegravity is the developer of the component and it is available in the JED. It is worth the hassle registering on the developers' website. The component is for free and is sponsored with non-intrusive Google ads in the back-end.

In a nutshell: A high quality extension that allows you to keep an eye on your site's performance statistics in addition to Google's webmaster tools.

Google Analytics And Your Joomla Website

Google Analytics gives your detailed info about web traffic to your site.

To use Google Analytics on your site, you need to:

Step 1: Register with Google Analytics and get an Analytics ID.

Step 2: Install our preferred BIGSHOT Google Analytics Plugin from the JED and insert the ID in the plugin.

Step 3: Visit the Google Analytics website and you will see in detail the traffic to your website.

Using Google Adsense in Joomla

If you are interested in placing advertisements on your Joomla site, we do recommend you use Google's Adsense Tools directly and stay away from extensions that provide adsense capability.

Step 1: Register with Google Adsense. It is for free and within a day or so you will normally get Google's approval to participate in the plan.

Step 2: Using Adsense Setup, manage ads and get an ad.

Step 3: In the custom html module, you insert your Adsense code for the add. Make sure the editor does not strip the code. Choose the position of the module.

Step 4: If you want, you can change the color of links, the border etc. using the manage my ads. We made it red for this website to keep the colors under control.

Google and Site Maps

When Google indexes the site map of your site (which is a list of pages on your site), you give Google more information about your site including pages that may not be discovered by Google's crawling process.

There are actually two types of site maps: HTML and XML site maps. Google does not understand the HTML variant, so these you should not use if you want to improve Google's indexing of your site. The following steps guide you through the process:

Step 1:Install an XML site map: Our preferred XML site map for Joomla is XMAP - you can find it in the Joomla Extensions Directory.

Step 2:Register with "Google Webtools": After you have installed the component, the next step is to make sure you register your site map with "Google Webtools."

Step 3: Register your website: After you have registered with Google (you need a Google Account), you can register your website and its site map.

Step 4:Verify your website: In order for Google to know that you are the owner of the site, you need to insert a verification code in your website.To make things easier for your, there are Joomla plugins that allow you to enter the code so Google can verify your site.

We use "Google Verify", a Joomla Plugin to make Google Webmaster Tools site verification a bit easier. Once you have installed the plugin, you can enter the verification code from Google and activate the plugin. On the Google Webtools site, you can verify your website. Google now knows your are the owner of the site.

It normally takes a few hours before your site map is indexed.

Step 5:Register your site map: To register the site map in "Google Webtools.", you need to give Google the link to the site map. To find the link, go to the XMap component and look for options. In the options, you will find the link you need. Copy the link and insert it in "Google Webtools."

To find the link, go to the XMap Component and Click on Options.

Click on Preferences and copy the link to the XML site map

Insert the link into the sitemaps option of Google Webtools.

If you use SEF urls for your site, do not paste the link to the site map you see in your browser - it will not work: only use the link to the XML site map you find in the options of XMap, otherwise you will get the following error: "Unsupported File Format - Your sitemap appears to not be in the Supported File Format."