Add Fathom Analytics to your Obsidian Publish site

Originally published: January 09, 2025
Last updated: January 09, 2025

In trying to figure out how to add analytics to my drjethro ¹ site, I had to do a little digging. I was stoked to find this little page:

Today I figured out how to embed the tracking code for Fathom Analytics into an Obsidian Publish website. It’s easy.

via Micah Walter

Well, turns out it wasn’t that easy.

Obsidian lists this as the code you need to put into a publish.js file at the root of your obsidian folder:

var fathom = analyticsScript.createElement('script');
analyticsScript.defer = true;
analyticsScript.setAttribute('data-site', 'yourdomain.com');
analyticsScript.src = 'https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js';
document.head.appendChild(analyticsScript);

That didn’t work.

Micah shared this code:

var fathomSnippet = document.createElement('script');
fathomSnippet.defer = true;
fathomSnippet.setAttribute('data-site', '<your-site-code>');
fathomSnippet.src = 'https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js';
document.head.appendChild(fathomSnippet);

But that didn’t work for me.

I reached out to support at Fathom and Awesome Ash shared this update:

var fathomScript = document.createElement('script');
fathomScript.defer = true;
fathomScript.setAttribute('data-site', 'SITEID');
fathomScript.src = 'https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js';
document.head.appendChild(fathomScript);

I entered that with my site code and it registered immediately.

I also use ChatGPT to help me code, since I’m new at this. And this is the code ChatGPT gave me:

var analyticsScript = document.createElement('script');
analyticsScript.defer = true;
analyticsScript.setAttribute('data-site', 'YOUR_SITE_ID_HERE');
analyticsScript.src = 'https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js';
document.head.appendChild(analyticsScript);

Which looks identical to what Ash sent over, except ChatGPT used analyticsScript and she used fathomScript.

Ash said there was a small error in the Obsidian code:

It’s referring to ‘analyticsScript’, which isn’t ever defined, so it’s just returning ‘null’ and preventing the code in the publish.js file from running.

It also lists ‘yourdomain.com’ which I don’t think is right either. I think it has to be the SITEID, which is what I used, and what Ash recommended in her email to me. And now it’s working well on my drjethro.com site.

You see, this is a good example of where AI can sometimes be beneficial. I could have used ChatGPT to get that answer, but Ash had more context working at Fathom, and could provide clearer help and direction, so I could understand. ChatGPT’s answer was:

The issue with your JavaScript snippet is that you are creating the script element incorrectly. You should be calling document.createElement(‘script’) directly, not analyticsScript.createElement(‘script’).

You see, I don’t have the expertise to understand what the AI was saying there, but Ash explained it in a way that made sense.

1. I can’t believe I scored that domain name! ↩

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