Okay so, from the past couple of weeks, my forum now gets lots of visitors per day and with that many coming and going, I'd like to keep track on where they're coming from. Google Search Console doesn't really help with this though... although, with my past forums, I had a "trackback" set up where I can view where each visitor has come from (i.e. the source, such as from Google or another search engine, or even from another forum where my forum is linked) and what page they've landed (i.e. the destination, like to a specific thread on the forum more so in relation to their search lookups). However, many of my new visitors are usually just "Viewing Board Index" but I know for sure that they're here to look at certain threads from a Google search or what have you).
If anybody knows of a service where I can find out that information from just the forum's URL, or even make me a "trackback" with it, then do come forward 🙂
Google Analytics can show you where your traffic is coming from, Google Search Console helps better index your site. It's what I use to keep track of where my traffic is coming from on all my websites.
Just started using that, but I'm having an issue with the Google tag that I've put on my forum (where Google complains about it not being detected, even though I did follow the instructions on installing it).
EDIT: Fixed it... I just put it at the wrong place (of putting it within the "head" tags instead of after the end of them, silly me)
Tools like Matomo or Plausible offer privacy-friendly analytics with real-time visitor source data. You can also set up server-side logging via tools like GoAccess for deeper insights. These go beyond what Search Console offers and work well with forums.
I rely on Google Analytics, and Google Search Console to track the traffic/visitors that find my site. I also have an addon enabled on my forum which shows me a country flag for each user based on IP address.
Google Analytics can show you where your traffic is coming from, Google Search Console helps better index your site. It's what I use to keep track of where my traffic is coming from on all my websites.
Cloudflare’s web analytics also works great. It’ll show the top pages that your visitors are using to access your site, the country and browser that they’re using.
It also shows the site’s that are sending you the most traffic.
Google search console will give insight into how your visitors are visiting your site and the particular page they are going to. It gives a detailed overview of the traffic on the web. It points to the referral site, landing pages and user behavior.
It's really the only way this will be possible. GA4 scares people too because it looks complex and it is in many ways. However, use ChatGPT or another AI to help you easily understand each metric and how they relate to your forum and other metrics. This is a case where AI is awesome because you can have it break down meaning to your type of understanding and that can make you an expert at something really quickly.
