would it be naive to say that sites can get around the blockers by proxying their analytics through their own domain? Isn't the lazy way of sending everything directly to ga from the client the cause here -- and any thoughtful site owner should be able to circumvent this if they truly care to?
How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
61–70 of 242 posts
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
page load times go up
Unless you’re doing something silly a button can’t be more than a hundred bytes or so. That’s only significant on a 90s era cell phone. Then again most browsers have a print button.
Yes, the browser has a print function, although you may need a CSS code specific for printing rather than screen, if you want a good result. (If you do not use any CSS at all (which is not so common these days), then you probably don't need a CSS specific for printing either, though.)
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#63I recently got tired of Google Analytics (for a number of reasons) and switched to Fathom Analytics.
Now, Ghostery says I have "zero trackers" on my personal site.
Fathom doesn't collect personal info about my visitors. They just show me my aggregate metrics (popular pages, top referrers) which is all I need anyway.
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#64Turned it off via PiHole, so my ChromeOS laptops and Androids are covered at home, still trying to get Wireguard set up on the PiHole to allow remote VPN, while suffering double-NAT/CGNat through my AT&T hotpsot as home connection. Turns out it's not a slam-dunk!
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#65This is why I have analytics on the JavaScript side and server side. I can calculate those who block my analytics and at the same time capture a lot of the relevant information
Subverting the desires of people who would like privacy is not a good look.
"X is not a good look" should be left in the echo chambers of Twitter. It comes across as smug, because you assume you're an authority on what a "good look" is, that is, what the correct thinking is. But you're doing this while the reader is noting that you failed to express a real argument, so they're not sure you even know what the correct thinking is, let alone why it ought to be correct.
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#66It's from 2017 but even more valid today. GA is blocked by most ad blockers thus no company can rely confidently on it anymore. uBlock blocks also a few other tools like MixPanel that helps companies understand their users behavior and how they use their product. I can't believe how ignorant people that say "use server logs" are. They clearly haven't done any online marketing or run an online business, yet they want…
so that makes spying and pervasive tracking okay? because it makes money? no! businesses have managed without previously. the world won't end without GA.
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#67This test compares: 1. Number of visitors as recorded in Google Analytics 2. Number of loads of a 1x1 pixel served on a different domain They see higher numbers for (2) than (1), and attribute the difference to users blocking Google Analytics. I don't see them describing how they excluded bot traffic, however, and for my sites the majority of hits I get are from bots. Only some bots run JS, so I suspect their numbers…
It's not just two numbers of total hits the article is comparing. The author extracted the browser information from the server logs (presumably from the User-Agent header i guess?). If they were able to do this, i'd assume they also filtered out bots from the tally :)
I'd expect serious bots to masquerade as whatever the latest chrome user agent is.
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#68Narrator: not enough...
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#69Note that the 0% for Android is because Google banned ad blockers on the Play Store.
I'm confused, on my stock Android phone, I use Firefox with ublock origin. So the Play Store blocking ad blockers cannot be that effective?
Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)
#70This test compares: 1. Number of visitors as recorded in Google Analytics 2. Number of loads of a 1x1 pixel served on a different domain They see higher numbers for (2) than (1), and attribute the difference to users blocking Google Analytics. I don't see them describing how they excluded bot traffic, however, and for my sites the majority of hits I get are from bots. Only some bots run JS, so I suspect their numbers…
Yeah, the numbers in the article are so far off my intuition that I'm happy to latch onto any explanation for why they're weird. Being unable to effectively discount bots seems likely.