Create your first project
Create a project, verify the domain, pick a plan and activate the Analytics, Performance and SEO services.
Updated: Dec 2025
What this guide covers
This guide walks you step by step through how to:
- create your first Shahin project,
- register and verify your site’s domain,
- choose a plan and activate the Analytics, Performance and SEO services.
If you are not yet familiar with accounts, projects and primary domains, read “Accounts, projects & domains” first.
Project setup prerequisites
- Your site’s domain — e.g.
example.comornews.example.com. - Access to your host / server — to upload the verification file.
- (Optional) access to Google Search Console — to activate the SEO service.
- (Optional) access to your site template code or a tag management tool (e.g. Google Tag Manager) — to place the Analytics script on your pages.
Step 1: Create the project & register the domain
- In the Shahin panel, choose “Create new project”.
- In the project-domain step, enter your site’s primary domain, e.g.
example.com. - If your site has several related subdomains (such as
m.example.comorblog.example.com) and you want their data collected in this same project, enable Wildcard Domain. - Click the Next button to go to domain verification.
you can change the primary domain later from project settings. This is only a default/display setting and does not affect data collection or old data for any domain.
Step 2: Verify domain ownership
In this step Shahin makes sure the domain really belongs to you.
- On the verification page, click Download File to get the verification file.
- Upload it — without renaming or editing — to your site’s root folder on the server.
- Back in Shahin, click Verify.
If everything is right, the domain is verified and you move on. If you get an error, the usual causes are:
- the file is not in the right path,
- the file was renamed,
- or the server/CDN cache has not served the new version yet.
You can choose Verify Later if needed, but no data is collected for the project until the domain is verified.
Step 3: Choose a plan
After verification, pick a subscription plan for this project. A plan typically defines:
- a cap on event and pageview volume,
- the number of allowed users and team members in the project,
- which services are active in the plan (Analytics, Performance and SEO).
plans are always per project; with several projects you can choose a separate plan for each.
Step 4: Set up the services
After choosing a plan you land on the services page of the project, where each service needs a short setup.
4.1 Install the Analytics script
- Shahin shows you a tracking script.
- Place it in your site template, usually right before the closing
</body>tag.
If you have a technical team, just send them the script. If you use a tag manager, add the script as a new tag.
Until the script is on your pages, Analytics reports will have no data to show.
4.2 The Performance service
The same tracking script you installed in 4.1 also collects Infrastructure & Network and Render & Interaction data automatically from real visits — these two reports need no separate setup. Core Web Vitals, however, is based on periodic checks of pages you define, not real visitor traffic; to activate it:
- open the Performance page,
- define your key pages as Layouts,
- Shahin periodically checks these pages and updates their Core Web Vitals.
Until you define a Layout, only the Core Web Vitals report has no data — Infrastructure & Network and Render & Interaction populate as soon as the script is live.
4.3 Connect Google Search Console for SEO
- Shahin shows you a service email for the Search Console connection.
- Add that email as a new user on the property covering this domain in Google Search Console.
- Back in Shahin, confirm the step is done.
From then on Shahin can read Search Console data for the project, and SEO reports fill up gradually.
FAQ
Choosing Verify Later completes the project setup and gives you access to the panel; however, monitoring and data collection won’t begin until domain ownership is fully verified.
- Project status — the project stays in Pending Verification.
- Data collection — no events, incoming traffic or analytics metrics are recorded before final verification.
- Completing it — you can upload the verification file and activate the domain status via the warning banner at the top of the panel or Project settings › Domain.
- Automatic deletion — a project whose domain ownership is not verified is deleted automatically four days after it was created. Two days after creation, the project owner receives a reminder by SMS and email with a direct verification link. A project deleted this way can be restored.
Domain-ownership verification errors usually come from one of three causes:
- Wrong file path — the verification file must sit exactly in the site’s root folder (the public_html folder or web-server root), not in a subfolder.
- Renamed or altered file — the downloaded file’s name, extension or content must not be changed.
- Server or CDN cache — if you use a content delivery network (such as Cloudflare or ArvanCloud) or a caching plugin, the new version may not have propagated yet.
Subscription plans in Shahin are defined per project and set that project’s resource and access limits:
- Data cap — the maximum allowed pageviews and analytics events per period.
- Team capacity — how many users and collaborators can be members of the project.
- Active services — which of the platform’s analytics tools are available: Analytics, Performance and SEO.
Note: Since the plan applies at the project level, if you manage several domains you can choose a different plan for each site as needed.
Yes; the tracking script automatically collects baseline performance data, load times and real user interactions (RUM).
Note: Note on Core Web Vitals: to activate and receive reports for the key web performance metrics, you need to register your site’s target pages as Layouts in the panel. Until a Layout is defined, this section’s dedicated reports won’t be shown.
Activating the SEO service requires granting access in Google Search Console, done in three steps:
- Get the service email — the Shahin panel shows a dedicated service email address.
- Add the user in Search Console — open Google Search Console, open the property matching your site’s domain, and under Settings › Users and permissions, add that email as a new user.
- Final confirmation — return to the Shahin panel and confirm the access has been granted. SEO data processing and display begin gradually after connecting.
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