Import and export your statistics in Burst

Switching to Burst should not mean starting your analytics history from zero. Since Burst 3.7.1, the Data page in the Burst settings has two new tools for that: an importer that brings in historical statistics from your previous analytics tool, and an exporter that creates a complete, restorable backup of your Burst data. Both are part of Burst Pro.

This article explains what each tool does, how to use it, and what to expect from the result.

Where to find it

Go to Burst → Settings → Data. The page has four sections:

• Import data brings historical statistics into Burst.
• Export data creates a backup of all Burst statistics tables.
• Manage settings downloads or uploads your Burst configuration as a small JSON file.
• Archiving and Archived Data manage the yearly archives of older statistics. Those are covered in a separate article.

If Burst detects another statistics plugin on your site, you will also see a task on the dashboard that says Import your statistics data from … and takes you straight to the importer.

Importing historical data

Supported sources

Burst can import from eleven sources. They fall into two groups.

WordPress plugins on the same site. If one of these plugins is installed, Burst reads its tables directly from the local database. No export file is needed.

• WP Statistics
• Matomo for WordPress
• Independent Analytics
• Koko Analytics
• Statify
• Slimstat Analytics

Export files from other tools. For these you download an export from the other tool and upload it to Burst.

• Google Analytics 4: a CSV report with one row per date, page path and session source, containing pageviews, sessions, users, average session duration and bounce rate. This is the shape you get from a GA4 Exploration or a Looker Studio export. The comment lines that the GA4 interface adds at the top of the file are fine.
• Plausible: the ZIP file from Plausible’s own export, or one of its CSV files.
• Fathom: the CSV export with pageviews and visits or uniques.
• Jetpack Stats: the CSV export from WordPress.com with views and visitors.
• Burst Statistics: a backup made with the Burst exporter (.sql.gz, .sql or .zip).

The six WordPress plugins can also be imported from a file. That is useful when you are migrating from another server: export the tables there and upload them here.

How an import runs

1. Select provider. Pick the tool you are migrating from. Plugins that are active on your site are marked with a green dot.
2. Configure and ingest. For a local plugin, choose between Local database and Upload file. Before you start, Burst shows the connection status, the estimated number of records, the date range that is available, and the date Burst itself started tracking. For a file, drag it onto the upload area.
3. Start. Click Start database import or Start file import. The import runs in the background in small batches. You can leave the page. Progress, the number of processed rows and the table being merged are shown in the import card, and the import continues through WordPress cron even when nobody has the settings page open.

Large files are not a problem. The uploader sends the file in slices of 2 MB, so the upload is not limited by your server’s maximum upload size. Compressed Burst backups are decompressed in small steps for the same reason.

Only data from before Burst started tracking

The importer never mixes imported and native data for the same period. Burst knows when it started tracking on your site, and every import only takes records dated before that moment. Anything on or after that date is skipped. This means you can install Burst, let it run, and import your history whenever you get around to it without doubling up on numbers.

Two more rules protect you against duplicates:

• Each local plugin can be imported once. To import it again, roll back the previous import first.
• A file that has already been imported is rejected. Burst recognises it by its content, so uploading the same export twice does nothing. Note that a re-exported file for the same period looks different to Burst and will not be caught. Roll back the earlier import before you import a fresh export of the same period.

What the imported data looks like

Burst stores individual pageviews and sessions. Other tools export daily totals: on a given day, a page had this many pageviews from this many visitors. To make that history usable in the Burst dashboard, the importer converts each total into individual visits and pageviews that add up to the same numbers. Daily and weekly totals, per-page counts, visitor counts, bounce rates and referrers match the original tool. The time of day and the order of pages within a visit are not in the source data, so those are spread out over the day rather than reproduced exactly. Metrics the source does not have, such as devices for a tool that only exports page totals, stay empty rather than being invented.

Every imported visitor is tagged with the import it came from. That tag is what makes a rollback exact.

A Burst backup is different: it is restored one to one, including sessions, goals, campaigns and the dimension lookups. You can restore a backup that was made with a different table prefix; Burst remaps it.

Rolling back an import

Every import appears in the Import history panel with its status, date and number of rows. A finished, failed or cancelled import can be undone with the Rollback button. Rollback removes exactly the rows that this import added, including goals the import created, and leaves your native data, your existing goals and the shared lookups untouched. Like the import itself, a rollback runs in chunks in the background, so a timeout cannot leave you with half-deleted data.

Cancelling a running import also removes what was already inserted. Clear history removes finished imports from the list and deletes their temporary files. Burst keeps the last fifteen imports in the list.

Exporting a full backup

The Export data section creates a compressed SQL backup of every Burst statistics table on the site: hits, sessions, visitors, goals and goal conversions, campaigns, searches, external links, forms, the dimension lookups such as browsers, devices, platforms, locations and referrers, plus the Pro tables for reports and e-commerce. The result is a single .sql.gz file that the Burst importer on any other site can restore.

Before you start, the page shows how many tables and records will be exported and an estimated file size. Compression is effective on this kind of data; the archive is typically over 90 percent smaller than the database footprint.

How an export runs

Click Export all Burst data. The export streams the tables to a file on disk in small chunks of a few thousand rows, using indexed queries, so it works on large sites without hitting PHP time or memory limits. You can Pause, Resume and Cancel while it runs, and a running export resumes automatically if you reload the page. When it finishes, the file appears under Available export archives with a Download button and a Delete archive button.

Scheduled backups

Turn on Automated export schedule to have Burst make a backup by itself. Choose a daily, weekly or monthly frequency and how many backups to keep on the server: the last three, five or ten. Older archives are removed automatically. The next scheduled run is shown on the page. Scheduled exports run through WordPress cron in the background and do not affect your visitors.

Where the files are stored

Export archives are stored in the WordPress uploads folder in a directory with a random, unguessable name that is also blocked from direct web access. Downloads go through a signed link for logged-in users with the manage Burst statistics capability. Download links expire after a day; refresh the page to get a fresh one.

What is not in the backup

The backup contains statistics tables only. Your Burst settings, license and other options are deliberately left out, because they contain site-specific data such as tokens and keys that should not travel with a backup file. Use Manage settings on the same page to move your configuration. Yearly archives created by the archiving feature are separate files and are not part of the export either.

Moving Burst to another site

To move or copy your statistics to another WordPress site:

1. On the source site, export a backup under Export data and download it.
2. Under Manage settings, click Download settings file to get your configuration.
3. On the target site, install and activate Burst Pro, then upload the settings file under Manage settings. Importing a settings file replaces your current settings; anything not in the file goes back to its default. Goals and your license are not part of the settings file.
4. Under Import data, choose Burst Statistics Backup, upload the .sql.gz file and start the import.

Remember that the importer only restores records dated before the target site’s own Burst tracking started. Import the backup before the new site gathers much traffic, or accept that the overlap is skipped.

Good to know

• Import and export are paused while a Burst database upgrade is running in the background. The page tells you when that is the case; try again once the upgrade finishes.
• Only one import or rollback can run at a time.
• The exporter always exports all data. There is no date range selection. For a filtered, spreadsheet-friendly extract, use the CSV download button on any data table in the statistics dashboard.
• Both tools require the manage Burst statistics capability, which administrators have by default.