Google Analytics Proxy (GAP) provides a Proxy Service to Google's Measurement Protocol and a replacement for Google Analytic's client-side JavaScript (analytics.js) to increase privacy and help prevent possible data leakage.
To minimize implementation changes, GAP attempts to mirror syntax from analytics.js.
The proxy service is intended to be run as an AWS Lambda.
- AWS Lambda - The service will serve as an AWS Lambda instance.
- aws-serverless-express - The server is built with ExpressJS with the npm module specifically for AWS Lambda.
Clone the repo. Open your terminal and in the folder you just downloaded, run
$ npm installTo execute the service locally, run
$ npm startThe server will be executed on localhost:3001.
To use GAP on a web page, load the client-side JavaScript from the Proxy Service:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsProxyObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','https://xxx.org/javascript/gaproxy.js','gap');
gap('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
gap('send', 'pageview');
</script>The code should be added near the top of the <head> tag with the string 'UA-XXXXX-Y'.
- Replace UA-XXXXX-Y of the Google Analytics property you wish to track.
- Replace xxx.org with the location of your GAP client-side JavaScript.
- Optionally, replace auto with a cookie fields object (see below).
Adding this code will load GAP and track the current pageview.
To optionally control how the client-side cookie is set, pass a cookie fields object:
gap('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', {
clientId: '76c24efd-ec42-492a-92df-c62cfd4540a3',
cookieDomain: 'example.org',
cookieExpires: 60 * 60 * 24 // Time in seconds (1 day)
});You can optionally specify GAP parameters:
gap('init', 'MetricNameSpace');- Replace MetricNameSpace with the namespace to be used for metrics.
- Replace 123456-abcde-123456-abcde with a Client ID. If a Client ID is not specified, it will be randomly generated.
Pageview hits can be sent using the send command and specifying a hitType of pageview. The send command has the following signature for the pageview hit type:
gap('send', 'pageview', [page], [fieldsObject]);Documentation for additional pageview parameters is available from the analytics.js documentation.
Event hits can be sent using the send command and specifying a hitType of event. The send command has the following signature for the event hit type:
gap('send', 'event', [eventCategory], [eventAction], [eventLabel], [eventValue], [fieldsObject]);Documentation for additional event parameters is available from the analytics.js documentation.
To deploy the service as an AWS Lambda instance, in the root of the folder, create a file named ".env". Follow the format below,
AWS_ENVIRONMENT=[the environment you want]
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=[your access key]
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=[your access key secret]
AWS_PROFILE=
AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=
AWS_ROLE_ARN=[your lambda instance role]
AWS_REGION=[your lambda region]
AWS_FUNCTION_NAME=
AWS_HANDLER=index.handler
AWS_MEMORY_SIZE=128
AWS_TIMEOUT=3
AWS_DESCRIPTION=
AWS_RUNTIME=nodejs4.3
AWS_VPC_SUBNETS=
AWS_VPC_SECURITY_GROUPS=
EXCLUDE_GLOBS="event.json"
PACKAGE_DIRECTORY=buildTo get your AWS Lambda service credentials, please visit AWS Lambda's website.
Then run:
node-lambda deploy --functionName googleAnalyticsProxy --environment development --configFile deploy.env
It will deploy your server as a Lambda instance to your AWS account.