Getting started

Add Publistic to your site in under 60 seconds. One script tag, no build tools, no configuration. Data starts flowing immediately.

Installation

Sign up at app.publistic.us/setup
Enter your site URL. No credit card required.
Copy the script tag
After signing up, you'll get a single line of code to add to your site.
Paste before </head>
Add the script tag to your site's HTML head. That's it.
Data flows within seconds
Open your Publistic dashboard and watch realtime data appear as visitors arrive.

The script tag

The tracker is a single script tag that loads asynchronously and never blocks page rendering:

<script defer src="https://cdn.publistic.us/publistic.js"></script>

📚

The script is under 1KB gzipped, loads with defer so it never blocks rendering, and uses no cookies. It has zero impact on your site's performance or Core Web Vitals.

Platform-specific guides

WordPress

Paste the script tag in your theme's header.php file, just before the closing </head> tag. Alternatively, use a header/footer plugin like "Insert Headers and Footers" to add the script without editing theme files.

A dedicated WordPress plugin is coming soon.

Ghost

Go to Settings → Code injection → Site Header and paste the script tag. Click Save. Ghost injects it on every page automatically.

Next.js / React

Add the script tag to your root layout or _document.tsx head section:

// app/layout.tsx
export default function RootLayout({ children }) {
  return (
    <html>
      <head>
        <script defer src="https://cdn.publistic.us/publistic.js"></script>
      </head>
      <body>{children}</body>
    </html>
  );
}

Static sites / Hugo / Jekyll

Add the script tag to your base template or layout file's <head> section. Since the script auto-detects the current page URL, no additional configuration is needed.

Verifying installation

After adding the script, open your Publistic dashboard and visit your site in another tab. You should see your visit appear in the realtime view within a few seconds.

✅

If you don't see data after a minute, check your browser's developer console for any errors. Ad blockers may block the script — try with ad blockers disabled to verify the installation works.

What gets tracked

Once installed, Publistic automatically tracks:

Pageviews — counted once per page load
Engaged time — active reading time (not just tab-open time)
Scroll depth — how far readers scroll down each page
Traffic sources — where your readers come from (Search, Social, Direct, Email, etc.)
Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, CLS from real visitors
Device and browser — parsed from user agent, raw UA not stored
Geography — country and region from IP lookup (IP itself is not stored)

No configuration is needed — the tracker picks up article titles, authors, and publish dates from standard HTML meta tags and structured data automatically.