: Best way to find out how many hits a site gets, without slow load times I am building a translation website. One of my priorites is load times. Recently I added a Google Analytics tracking

@Ann8826881

Google should not slow you down much. You can move the JavaScript code to the bottom of the page which may help with loading. If that does not speed things up enough, then consider the following.

You will need a performance analysis tool. There are several to chose from.
piwik.org/ is likely the best or near the best. Piwik is not a log analysis tool and uses a bug, but since it installed on your computer, it will be a lot faster.

Other options are:
www.awstats.org/ (log file based)
www.webalizer.org/ I have used this in past for my web host customers. (log file based)

I also used SawMill (still do) and created automated custom e-mail reports for my customers, but SawMill is fairly expensive.

I am not a huge fan of Google Analytics. There is valuable information that only Google can provide so it should be a tool in your arsenal. I do use it. But it does not give a complete picture of what is going on. Always use a separate log file analysis tool. Google Analytics can be confusing. However, a log analysis tool cannot provide what Google can so it remains a valuable tool. Both will empower you to make solid decisions.

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