Server-side Tracking

Server-side tracking collects analytics data through your own backend and forwards it to analytics tools from there, instead of the browser calling each tool directly.

The term is used loosely for two different setups: events that originate in backend code, and a first-party collector or server-side tag manager that receives a browser event and relays it onward. Both put a domain you own between the page and the vendor, which means less third-party script in the page, first-party cookies, and the option to strip personal fields before anything leaves your infrastructure. The cost is real infrastructure to run, plus the loss of every client detail you do not deliberately forward. It is also oversold as a way to recover blocked traffic: if the collector script is blocked in the browser, the event is never created, and only the relay hop was ever protected.