LiveWhale 3.0 includes a built-in analytics system designed to provide basic usage insights without user tracking. This system begins collecting data in LiveWhale 2.23 and is expanded and surfaced in LiveWhale 3.0.

LiveWhale Analytics is intentionally limited in scope to be privacy-first. It is designed to help LiveWhale managers understand overall usage trends—such as traffic volume, device mix, and referrer categories—while minimizing data collection and avoiding personal data wherever possible. For more thorough or granular analytics tracking, you are always welcome to load your own GA4, GTM or other tracking code as part of your LiveWhale theme.

What LiveWhale Analytics Measures

LiveWhale Analytics records pre-aggregated, anonymized totals only, including:

• Total daily hits to each URL 
• General device type (e.g., desktop, iOS, Android)
• General referrer category (e.g., search engine, social media, internal link, external link, direct URL)

This data is stored only as aggregated counts in each bucket, not as individual events or visit records.

What LiveWhale Analytics Does Not Do

LiveWhale Analytics does not:

• Track individual users or sessions
• Create user profiles, timelines, or behavioral paths
• Store user IP addresses or pseudonyms
• Use cookies, local storage, or persistent identifiers
• Perform cross-page, cross-session, or cross-site tracking
• Send analytics data to third-party services

There is no concept of a “visitor” or “user journey” in LiveWhale Analytics—only aggregated totals.

We intentionally designed LiveWhale Analytics to avoid user tracking, personal data processing, and client-side identifiers. As a result, we believe this anonymized, statistical approach does not require user consent under ePrivacy or GDPR.

Data Handling and Storage

All analytics data is:

• Anonymized and aggregated before being written to long-term storage
• Stored entirely within the LiveWhale architecture (your site’s filesystem and database)
• Never transmitted to or processed by third-party analytics providers

Where applicable, additional safeguards (such as minimum thresholds) are applied to avoid displaying very small data sets that could potentially identify individuals.

Analytics Tracking in LiveWhale 2.23+

LiveWhale Analytics data collection begins automatically in LiveWhale 2.23. Upgrading to LiveWhale 2.23 allows your site to begin accumulating anonymized, aggregated usage data ahead of upgrading to LiveWhale 3.0, so historical data is available once the 3.0 Reporting interfaces are enabled.

If you prefer not to collect this data, analytics collection can be disabled by adding the following in /livewhale/client/global.config.php:

$_LW->CONFIG['DISABLE_LIVEWHALE_ANALYTICS'] = true; // disable aggregate visitor statistics

When disabled, no analytics data will be collected or stored.