The best Web Analytics API: Piwik API
The mission statement of Piwik is « To create, as a community, the leading international open source web analytics application, providing access to all functionality through open components and open APIs. »
"Open APIs:" It is very important for us that Piwik's users can access their data very easily. The problem with a service such as Google Analytics is that you don't own your data, you can only access it through the limited user interface the service provides. During the last weeks we've worked hard to implement and finalize the API concept in Piwik.
Piwik APIs makes it easy to get:
- the search engines keywords used during the last week
- the top 5 browsers of the current year
- the top 10 pages of your website that contain the string "blog", ordered by number of visits ascending
- the list of the websites registered in Piwik or the list of users that have an admin access on the website no 4
- and a lot more!
I've added a tutorial "How to get the top 10 keywords of yesterday in XML?" It's as simple as this url. Of course with PHP or any other langage you can very easily print out the result with the colors/fonts you want (see an example on this page and the example source code). You can request the data in XML / JSON / PHP / CSV / as a RSS feed / HTML.
See the full documentation on the API reference page. Many examples are provided.
With the API you can build widgets, display your web statistics in your blog sidebar, access piwik data from any other dashboard, etc.
If you have examples of people using the APIs leave a comment. Happy coding!
This entry was posted by Matthieu on Friday, January 18th, 2008 ; category Development, Documentation ; RSS comments.
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March 26th, 2008 5:12 pm
I demoed the piwik site and liked what I saw.
I downloaded and Installed, Super easy! nice.
Statistics aren't displaying, however, and I need some help.
thanks,
Brian
March 26th, 2008 6:00 pm
Brian, I guess you have to select today's statistics in the calendar. By default yesterday's statistics are displayed.
April 18th, 2008 7:07 pm
What this tool (and phpMyVisites) needs to lift off is a funnel|scenario|leaking bucket plug-in. Google Analytics have got got it as all the other commercial available tools, like Webtrends, WebIndexTools and others. Alas I'm not the developer to construct it, but in essence it takes a number of preset pages and tracks visitor actions; the ones that goes through every anticipated step, the ones that declines and spill of (to where) and the ones that enters into different levels of the funnel from unspecified pages (what are they). The absence of question marks are intentional. Without this it remains a toy. //All respect to the developers that've brought it this far.//
April 24th, 2008 1:12 am
Pos, we do agree that Piwik is not yet an alternative in GA for some user as it doesn't provide the advanced analytics features. We however believe that the current Piwik architecture makes it possible to add these features. We are looking for developers willing to work on piwik to make these possible. We would be happy to help on functional spec, design decisions, etc. :)
June 6th, 2008 6:20 am
what language was used in the development of Pwiki?
thank you
June 6th, 2008 6:22 am
Does Pwiki work like Compete.com? it would be cool if it did. thank you
December 17th, 2008 6:28 pm
kats, piwik is written in PHP5 using MySQL database
kats, piwik doesn't work like compete.com, you have to host Piwik on your own server, so you control your data, whereas compete would store your data on their servers.
September 23rd, 2009 7:54 pm
This is just awsome. I'll have to do a write up on it.
October 11th, 2009 11:09 am
Great helpful information, Thanks for this nice post, just subscribed your feed, hope you will update new post soon.
keep it up.
Aaron.
October 17th, 2009 9:15 am
This article is very interesting. We use the Piwik API already around the data of our customers to evaluate and to explain be able. Super a work. Thanks
October 24th, 2009 4:12 am
And the Brand Newbie Million dollar question of the day is…
Uh, I've managed to create an MySQL database, upload the files, and add the code at my footers…
So…how do I access the dashboard to see the data??
:)
November 18th, 2009 6:50 pm
Jeff: you have to point your browser at the piwik folder on your web server to begin the installation process. Return to the piwik folder afterwards to access the dashboard.
If you require further assistance, please use the support forum at http://forum.piwik.org
January 6th, 2010 8:52 pm
We do agree that Piwik is not yet an alternative in GA for some user as it doesn't provide the advanced analytics features. We however believe that the current Piwik architecture makes it possible to add these features. We are looking for developers willing to work on piwik to make these possible. We would be happy to help on functional spec, design decisions, etc. :)
John,
February 3rd, 2010 2:07 am
This post is in reality the freshest on this notable topic. I absolutely feel the same way with your points of view and will hungrily look forward to your coming updates. Saying thanks will not just be adequate, for the wonderful lucidity in your writing. I will immediately grab your rss feed to stay in the loop of any updates. Good work and much success in your website promotion!
February 10th, 2010 7:34 pm
Hello to all I can
April 5th, 2010 6:05 pm
Helpful information! Thank you so much!
April 13th, 2010 7:44 pm
Tutorial is really good and easy to follow.Thank you.
April 26th, 2010 12:41 pm
You're right Lara!
May 8th, 2010 4:07 pm
This is just awsome.
May 13th, 2010 6:40 pm
Interesting post!!
July 27th, 2010 12:12 pm
awesome tutorial…have to agree with others