I stitched together a bunch of posts from different sites to get a working setup for server-side google analytics with unique user tracking. This allows you to have a completely static (javascript-free) site and still get useful analytics data.
server {
# all of your other config...
userid on;
userid_name uid;
userid_domain <<the domain you are using this on>>;
userid_path /;
userid_expires 365d;
userid_p3p 'policyref="/w3c/p3p.xml", CP="CUR ADM OUR NOR STA NID"';
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/;
index index.html;
post_action @analytics;
}
location @analytics {
internal;
set $ipaddr $remote_addr;
resolver 8.8.8.8 ipv6=off;
proxy_pass https://ssl.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=<<your analytics UA- tag>>&cid=$uid_got&t=pageview&dh=$host&dp=$uri&dr=$http_referer&uip=$remote_addr;
}
}
Of course replace the <<the domain you are using this on>> and <<your analytics UA- tag>> with the appropriate data.
This will result in the server sending out a GET request with the client's info to the tracking URL for each page visit. It increases bandwidth used by your server but is a neat trick regardless.