Are JavaScript-Based Trackers Still Relevant?

This is a question that we have had many clients ask recently. You can imagine, with the heavy usage of JavaScript in web analytics, the thought of a decreased acceptance of JavaScript would be a terrible thing. The reason this question keeps popping up is due to the following SiteCatalyst report which gives the breakdown of visitors that have JavaScript enabled or disabled. You can see in this example that the percentage of visitors that come with JavaScript disable is about 17%. You can find this report under Visitor Profile>Technology>JavaScript.

Well, not to worry! Your JavaScript implementation isn’t worthless even if you have a high amount listed here as disabled. This is just a reporting oddity. For some reason SiteCatalyst is counting all mobile visits as not accepting JavaScript. Obviously that is not correct. If you segment out mobile visits you can get a more accurate view for non-mobile devices. Here is an example of a segment you can use to get to non mobile.

With the segment applied you should see the percentage disabled drop to about 1% or less. Take comfort in knowing that non-mobile devices still love JavaScript.

But what about mobile devices? How are we going to tell what the acceptance rate is like in case we need to take a different implementation approach for mobile? Well, until this report changes, I would suggest looking at the devices in your mobile reports and compare them to the JavaScript information in DeivceAtlas. DeviceAtlas has a Device Data repository and they allow you to search for a particular device that you might be interested in. Once you look up the device you can check out the JavaScript section of the report for details on what is accepted. Here you can see that the iPhone 5 does accept JavaScript.

Now keep in mind that JavaScript settings are really an aspect of the phone’s browser and not the actual phone. A user can always modify their individual settings but this Device Atlas information gives you an idea of what the defaults are.

So, in the end, don’t worry about the JavaScript report in SiteCatalyst. JavaScript isn’t always the right thing to use with an implementation but in general it is still a very valid approach.