SignalHost for Joomla: install the extension, connect once, and server-side tracking is live

• Joomla 4.4, 5 or 6, running on PHP 7.4 or newer.
• A SignalHost account. The free plan is enough to try it: 10,000 requests a month and one container. You can create the account while connecting.
• A Super User account in the Joomla administrator: connecting and disconnecting need permission to configure the SignalHost component, which Super Users have.

Download the package from the Joomla Extensions Directory, where it is listed as SignalHost Server-Side Tagging. In your Joomla administrator, open System › Install › Extensions and upload the zip file.

It is one package with two parts: the SignalHost component, where you connect the site and see its status, and the system plugin System - SignalHost Server-Side Tagging, which puts the code on your pages. The install switches the plugin on by itself; it prints nothing until the site is connected.

Open Components › SignalHost and press Connect with SignalHost. If you have no account yet, Create a free account takes you to the sign-up instead. Nothing is sent to SignalHost before you press Connect.

On signalhost.io, sign in. The next screen lists what the extension will and will not be able to do, and asks which container the site should use. A container is your own tagging server: a Tag Manager web container and server container, built in your own Google account, so they stay yours.

Pick an existing container, or press New container for your site and go through the short wizard. A new one takes a few minutes to build; you can connect straight away, and the code is added as soon as it is ready. Press Connect. You land back in Components › SignalHost with the message Connected. SignalHost's code is now added to every page of your site.

The screen now says Tracking is live, or Tracking starts as soon as your container is ready while a new one is still being built. Then read the line On your home page: right after connecting, the extension fetches your home page the way a visitor would and looks for its code. Code found is the answer you want. Check again repeats the check at any time, and the other answers are under When something does not work.

Open your site in a private window and click through a few pages; a visitor who declines your cookie banner is still counted, as Google's cookieless ping. Then press Open statistics & settings to open your container page on signalhost.io.

Under Enhanced analytics, the Recent tab shows the page views of the last 30 minutes, yours among them. Run checks, under Troubleshooting at the foot of the page, compares what your tagging server received with what Google Analytics reports for the same 30 minutes. Fewer in Analytics is normal: it leaves out visitors who declined cookies. From the Growth plan up, Live event monitoring shows each event as it arrives.

One small script, and one hourly check-in:

• The Google Tag Manager loader, in the head of your site's pages, pointed at your own tagging address instead of googletagmanager.com. It loads your Tag Manager container from there. The plugin adds it through Joomla's Web Asset Manager, so it carries a CSP nonce when your site uses one. It never runs in the administrator, a feed or a component-only view.
• Once an hour, after a page has gone out, the plugin checks in with signalhost.io to stay current. It sends only the extension's, Joomla's and PHP's versions, your site's address and whether the code was found on your home page: no visitor data, no content, no user accounts. If signalhost.io cannot be reached, your site keeps the last good configuration.

Every request leaves the browser in a form ad blockers do not recognise, and your tagging server forwards it to Google Analytics 4 and to the ad platforms you set up on the container page: Google Ads, Meta, TikTok and others. The tracking follows your cookie banner through Google Consent Mode; put your banner's code before SignalHost's.

The extension does not read forms or orders. Page views arrive on their own; a purchase or a lead reaches your container when your site pushes it to the data layer.

Your container starts on an address under signalhost.io. On a paid plan, Set up your own domain on the container page moves it to a subdomain of your own site, such as sgtm.yoursite.com, with one DNS record at your provider. That address survives filter lists and keeps click cookies first-party. When it goes live, the extension switches your site over at its next check-in, usually within the hour, and clears Joomla's page cache. Nothing needs replacing by hand, and the old address keeps working until then.

You can also paste the code yourself. On the container page, find your snippet in the Install on your site card and press Copy. Paste it into the head of every page (in Joomla, your site template), directly after your cookie banner's script, and press I have done this. Copy for AI agent hands the same job to a coding agent.

Pasting by hand gives up what the extension does: nothing checks your home page, nothing removes the code when you disconnect, the loader gets no CSP nonce unless you add one, and when your own domain goes live you replace the code yourself, from the card's Update your website snippet or the email announcing the domain. Never use both routes: two copies count every visit twice.

Updates arrive through Joomla's own updater, under System › Update › Extensions, like any other extension's.

Disconnect, on the Components › SignalHost screen, asks once, then revokes the site's access, takes the code off every page and clears Joomla's page cache. Your container and its statistics stay, and you can connect again at any time.

On signalhost.io, the container page says Installed by the Joomla extension on your site. Its Manage button leads to Settings, Connected sites, where Disconnect works too: the extension stops loading SignalHost at its next check-in, usually within the hour.

Uninstalling the package removes everything the extension stored. Disconnect first, so SignalHost knows the site is gone as well.

• Code not found: the plugin may be switched off. Enable System - SignalHost Server-Side Tagging in Joomla's plugin manager, then press Check again.
• Could not check (your server refused a request to itself): your host blocks requests to its own address. That says nothing about your visitors; look for your tagging address in your home page's source.
• An older copy is on the page, or The code is on the page twice: a copy was pasted by hand into a template or another extension. Remove it; the extension adds the current one, and two copies count every visit twice.
• A notice that your site already loads a Tag Manager container with Google's own snippet: remove that snippet, because SignalHost now loads the container and both together count every visit twice.
• This site's address has changed since it was connected: on a copy, such as staging, nothing is sent. If the live site moved, disconnect and connect again.
• Components › SignalHost keeps opening the dashboard instead: on a fresh Joomla, the first-login guided tour does that to every administrator page until you hide it.
• Anything else: write to hello@signalhost.io with your site's address.

SignalHost is an independent product of Algorithmo GmbH and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Open Source Matters, Google, Meta or TikTok. Google Analytics, Google Ads and Google Tag Manager are trademarks of Google LLC; Meta is a trademark of Meta Platforms, Inc.; TikTok is a trademark of ByteDance Ltd.; Joomla! is a trademark of Open Source Matters, Inc.