Parsely

Overview

Parsely (now part of WordPress VIP) is a content analytics platform used by digital publishers — news organizations, media companies, and content-driven brands — to measure article performance, audience engagement, and content strategy effectiveness. The platform tracks page views, engaged reading time, social referral patterns, and author/section performance, delivering real-time editorial intelligence dashboards. Parsely also powers content recommendation widgets that surface related articles and sponsored content within publisher sites. It is used by editorial, audience development, and content strategy teams.

What This Script Does

The Parsely script (cdn.parsely.com/keys/[SITE_ID]/p.js) initializes the tracking SDK and begins data collection:

Page view and content tracking:

• On each page load, fires an initial page view event to Parsely's collection endpoint (p.parsely.com/api/) with structured content metadata: canonical URL, article title, author name(s), publication date, section/category, tags, and image URL (extracted from page meta tags or configured data attributes)
• This structured metadata is how Parsely builds its content performance database — articles are tracked as entities with associated attributes, not just as URL hits

Engaged time measurement:

• The script tracks "engaged time" — the amount of time a visitor is actively reading (scrolling, interacting with the page, tab in focus) as opposed to passive idle time
• Sends heartbeat pings to Parsely's servers every 10 seconds during active engagement, recording the accumulated engaged duration
• Scroll depth events fire at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% thresholds to measure content consumption depth

Visitor identification:

• Sets _parsely_visitor (first-party, 1-year expiry) — a persistent pseudonymous visitor identifier used to calculate unique visitor counts, return visitor frequency, and per-visitor content journey analysis
• Sets _parsely_session (first-party, 30-minute expiry) — session-scoped data including session start time, initial referrer source, and entry page

Referral and traffic source tracking:

• Captures UTM parameters and referrer headers to attribute traffic to sources (search, social, direct, email, paid)
• Social share counts for articles are fetched via Parsely's API and displayed in editorial dashboards

Recommendation widget (if enabled):

• Loads a content recommendation module that renders "related articles" or "you might also like" blocks using Parsely's recirculation algorithm
• Recommendation impressions and clicks are tracked and fed back into the engagement dataset

Consent & Compliance

• Category: Analytics
• GDPR/ePrivacy: Parsely sets persistent cookies (_parsely_visitor) for cross-session visitor identification and collects behavioral data across each visit. This constitutes personal data processing requiring explicit consent under the ePrivacy Directive. A data processing agreement with WordPress VIP (Parsely's parent) is required. Parsely is a US company — EU transfers use Standard Contractual Clauses.
• CCPA: Visitor identifiers and behavioral data (reading patterns, content consumption) constitute personal information. Disclose Parsely's use in your privacy policy and honor opt-out requests by blocking the script.
• Content metadata: The article metadata collected by Parsely (author name, tags, section) is not personal data about visitors but is used to build content performance profiles. This is outside GDPR scope.
• Sponsored content recommendations: If Parsely's recommendation widget surfaces sponsored content (paid placements), this adds an advertising dimension that may require separate disclosure.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Yes. Parsely sets persistent cookies for individual visitor identification and tracks detailed reading behavior across sessions. The _parsely_visitor cookie enables cross-session user journeys that go beyond what is necessary for the site to function. Block until analytics consent is obtained.