We know what you're asking—Why is ClickTracks writing an article on cleaning supplies? Actually, we aren't. We are, however, going to spend a little time giving you the scoop on AJAX—an acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML—and what it has to do with web analytics.

To Refresh or Not to Refresh: That is the Question

AJAX is a programming methodology that has been around for many years, but has only recently gained popularity within the web development community. AJAX lets you develop web sites and web applications that behave like traditional compiled applications. What does this mean? Well, most web applications make use of forms—when the user clicks the submit button, they have to wait for the page to refresh while data is exchanged with the server. But by using AJAX calls, it becomes possible to send data from the client to the server through JavaScript and XML Server Objects. This creates the perception of a 'true' application because the page doesn't need to do a complete refresh. Individual data elements in the page can be changed and edited almost instantaneously.

Sounds pretty cool right? Well, it is. But before you all go out and buy an AJAX development book, there are some things you'll want to take into consideration. If you need accurate web analytics—and believe us, you do—you'll need to keep a few things in mind before developing your AJAX application.

Log Files or JavaScript: Which is Better for AJAX?

Since your pages won't refresh in the 'typical' matter, traditional page requests aren't being made, meaning that analytics data is hard to collect if you're using a JavaScript-based tracking solution. The nature of a JavaScript tracking solution is that every page or element you want to track must include a piece of JavaScript code that executes when the first page fully loads. If, for whatever reason the JavaScript tracking code doesn't get executed (like during an AJAX server exchange that doesn't cause a page reload), then that particular action won't get recorded.

On the other hand, log file based systems note both page requests *and* AJAX server requests. To better understand, let's take a look at a specific example:

index.html → user clicks on the products link → XML Server Object is accessed and data is passed to server → XML data containing product info is sent back from server → data is presented on index.html

In this example, if you used a conventional JavaScript tracking solution, only the request to index.html would be logged. However, in a log file based tracking system, both the request to index.html and the XML server object request would be logged. As a result, it would be possible to track which actions occurred, which links were clicked, etc.

It's important to weigh all the options when selecting an analytics solution. Both JavaScript and log file based tracking systems have their pros and cons, but if AJAX is your thing, having in place a log file based analytics solution should be a priority.

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