If you run a website, you want to know whether people read it. Which pages do well? Do visitors come from Google, from Facebook or straight to your site? The usual answer is Google Analytics – and with it a cookie banner, a long privacy policy and visitor data on someone else's servers. The PlaCeMS Statistics module takes a different route.
Everything Stays on Your Server
Statistics runs entirely on your own web space. There's no external script, no third-party service and no data sent to Google or anyone else. Each page loads just a tiny, invisible image that reports the visit. The analysis then happens right on your server.
No Cookies, No Plain-Text IPs
The Statistics module sets no cookies and stores nothing in your visitors' browsers. There's no fingerprinting and no tracking across websites. IP addresses are never stored in plain text – they're immediately turned into a non-reversible hash. Log files are kept outside the public web folder and can't be reached from the internet.
What You See
In the backend you get a clear dashboard:
- Views per day as a chart over the selected period
- Top pages: which content is read most
- Traffic sources: whether visitors come from search engines, social networks, other websites or directly
- Countries on a world map you can zoom and pan
- Time-of-day heatmap: when your visitors are online
If you like, the module also tracks UTM parameters. That way you see exactly which campaign or newsletter link brought how many visitors.
Recognising Bots
A large share of internet traffic doesn't come from people but from search engine crawlers and other bots. The Statistics module recognises them using its own bot list. You decide whether they're counted or filtered out – so they don't distort your numbers.
Countries Without a Third-Party Service
For country stats, PlaCeMS uses MaxMind's free GeoLite2 database. You upload it to your server once, and from then on each visit's country is determined locally – without any IP address leaving your server. If the file is missing, statistics keep running as normal, just without countries.
Good for You and Your Visitors
You get the numbers you really need for your website. Your visitors get a website that doesn't spy on them. And you avoid the hassle of third-party providers and data ending up somewhere in the world. You still need a note in your privacy policy – but it will be short and honest. Our own privacy policy (section 14) shows what such a section can look like.