Cloudflare Web Analytics Guide

Cloudflare Web Analytics Guide

This site uses Cloudflare Web Analytics for lightweight, privacy-oriented traffic and performance measurement. GitHub Pages continues to host the website; Cloudflare only receives the analytics beacon sent by visitors’ browsers.

Access the dashboard

  1. Open Cloudflare Dashboard.
  2. Sign in to the Cloudflare account that owns the analytics site. If the account was created with GitHub, choose Sign in with GitHub.
  3. Open Web Analytics.
  4. Select yanwin.github.io.
  5. Choose the desired time range above the main chart.

Analytics are viewed in Cloudflare, not in the GitHub repository or on the public website.

Useful dashboard sections

  • Visits and page views: Assess total traffic and changes over time.
  • Paths: Identify the relative traffic to the homepage, publication pages, CV, and teaching pages. Cloudflare cannot distinguish individual sections within the single-page homepage because they share the same path.
  • Referrers: See which external websites send visitors to the site.
  • Countries: View aggregate geographic distribution.
  • Devices and technology: Compare desktop, mobile, tablet, browser, and operating-system usage.
  • Page load time and Core Web Vitals: Check real-world loading speed, responsiveness, and layout stability.

Use filters to narrow the dashboard to a page, referrer, country, device type, browser, or operating system. When sharing a new paper, compare the period after the announcement with the preceding period and inspect both its publication path and its referrers.

Current limitations

  • Cloudflare Web Analytics currently retains dashboard data for the previous six months.
  • It does not currently support UTM campaign parameters or custom events.
  • A PDF download or outbound-link click is therefore not measured as a separate event. A visit to a publication page is visible, but a subsequent PDF download is not.
  • Browser extensions and privacy tools may block the analytics beacon, so counts should be interpreted as approximate rather than exact.
  • Data collection starts with the first deployment containing the beacon; earlier traffic cannot be reconstructed.

Repository integration

The site uses the analytics extension point already included in the Jekyll theme:

  • _config.yml selects the custom analytics provider.
  • _includes/analytics-providers/custom.html contains the Cloudflare beacon supplied for this site.
  • _includes/analytics.html selects the provider-specific include.
  • _includes/scripts.html loads analytics on site pages.
  • _pages/terms.md provides the public privacy disclosure.

The Cloudflare beacon token is necessarily visible in the generated public HTML and identifies the analytics site. Do not place Cloudflare account passwords, API tokens, or recovery codes in this repository.

Verify a deployment

  1. Wait for the GitHub Pages deployment to finish.
  2. Open https://yanwin.github.io in a browser without an analytics-blocking extension.
  3. Visit the homepage and one or two publication pages.
  4. Open the Cloudflare Web Analytics dashboard and allow a few minutes for the visits to appear.
  5. If no data appear, confirm that the hostname registered in Cloudflare is exactly yanwin.github.io and check whether the browser blocked static.cloudflareinsights.com.

Disable or replace analytics

To stop loading analytics without deleting the saved snippet, change analytics.provider in _config.yml from "custom" to "false" and redeploy the site. If the provider changes, update the custom include, this guide, and the privacy page together.

For current product behavior and metrics, consult the Cloudflare Web Analytics documentation.