Drupal Core Statistics Module
This article was published in the print magazine Drupal Watchdog, Volume 6 Issue 2, , on page 12, by Linux New Media. The magazine was distributed at DrupalCon Dublin, .
For most site builders, when there is a need to record basic site traffic information, the first solution that usually comes to mind is Google Analytics, which can gather a plethora of data. But it does require increasing page size with additional JavaScript, maintaining a Google account, and relying upon a third party for accuracy and data security. It may be sufficient to use the Statistics module that has been built into Drupal core since version 4. It tracks and reports on recent hits (for each page load, the URL, the timestamp, the visitor's Drupal username if logged in, and their IP address), top referrers (the previous URLs for all external visitors), top pages (aggregated hit counts and page generation times), and top visitors.
