It's always bothered me that Google Analytics (and similar embedded web traffic monitoring services) can only see a reflection of the traffic going to my server and can only see page visits since it depends on the browser executing a Javascript snippet. If I want to track real downloads of a software package (ZIP file), there's no way Google Analytics can possibly tell me that because its javascript can't be attached to a ZIP file. Is there a way I can upload my log files to Google so that the pointy-haired boss can see downloads of our ZIP/PDF/BIN files and not just visits to the download page?
Is it possible to use Google Analytics to track file downloads?
google analytics;analytics;traffic;logging
I'm going to add another answer here too. Based on the Google Analytics documentation for their iOS and Android SDN, it's possible to send traffic events from non-webpages. Some people have figured out how to use this API to send traffic directly from your server-side server-side application code, so now you can use the Google Analytics API to send traffic events manually from your download handler. Here's a link to the relevant libraries depending on your framework of choice:(PHP) php-ga: http://code.google.com/p/php-ga/(.NET) google-gdata: http://code.google.com/p/google-gdata/Update:The Google Analytics Measurement Protocol Developer Guide has instructions for issuing your own REST-style API calls to track whatever data you wish. This can include things like file downloads, calls to an API endpoint, or anything else.