How to turn on Google Analytics for your site in 2 lines of configuration: a custom IHttpModule

How to turn on Google Analytics for your site in 2 lines of configuration: a custom IHttpModule

June 8, 2006 7:10 am

Ok, so I got excited with Google Analytics , thanks to Scott Hanselman. So I decided to give it a quick try.

Turns out, you cannot give it a quick try unless you start changing your site’s pages to include a piece of script before the </body>… yuck!

I searched the web and found no one who had done the simplest possible thing to have transparent support for Google Analytics on your site without touching a single page: a custom IHttpModule that uses the HttpResponse.Filter property to detect </body> and add the script automatically before sending the buffered output.

If your site is not a high-traffic, performance-sensitive one (i.e. your corporate site/blog/small community site), you may find this little guy useful (note that I only had about 20′ to get it working ). Download the module for .NET v.2.0 or the one for .NET 1.1. Configuration is mininal:

<
configuration

<
appSettings

<
add

key
=“GoogleAnalyticsAccount“value=“[Google Analytics Account #]“/>

</
appSettings

<
connectionStrings
/>

<
system.web

<
compilation

debug
=“true“/>

<
authentication

mode
=“Windows“/>

<
httpModules

<
add

name
=“GoogleAnalytics“type=“Clarius.GoogleAnalyticsModule“/>

</
httpModules

</
system.web

</
configuration

Enjoy!

/kzu