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How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

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Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#71

Post by going_to_800 »

guitarbill wrote: post #66
going_to_800 wrote: post #56

It'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.

Google Analytics spies you? Lol. Those tools that you use daily on the browser that saves you time and makes your life easier got to that point because they had a way to learn how they were used. Seems that you don't make a difference between ad related tracking and product based tracking.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#72

Post by roblabla »

ozi wrote: post #34
thanhhaimai wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I turned off my Windows 10 Telemetry, I expressed a clear choice that I'd rather not give my data, and it's fine for my voice to not be heard. I just really don't care about Windows 10 that much. On the other hand, I turned on all the telemetry for OctoPi, Steam, and a bunch of other softwares I care about. I want my voice to be heard for those cases. Just curious, what's so inexcusable about that?

Yeah, exactly. "Inexcusable" seems a bit extreme. Are you suggesting companies spend 10x on manual user research? Are you willing to pay more for a product because of increased costs to understand what users actually want?

Yes, I expect them to do manual user research. And “making the users pay” is the wrong way to frame this - product pricing and labor aren’t that tightly correlated.

Besides, When we bought magazines the editors didn’t know what stories people were reading or what words you were spending more time reading. When you buy a tool the manufacturer doesn’t know how you use it. Why software gets a free pass at getting all that data for free without asking is beyond me. What I expect are for regulations to eventually hit this industry.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#73

Post by zizee »

twhb wrote: post #28

Note that the 0% for Android is because Google banned ad blockers on the Play Store.

Try Firefox mobile with ublock origin. I wish more Android users knew about this.

Sidenote: ads on sites degrade the experience so badly, whenever I browse without adblock I am honestly shocked at how bad it is, and I am amazed others don't seem to care.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#74

Post by mobjack »

going_to_800 wrote: post #56

It'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…

It isn't that hard to get around ad blockers for doing analytics.

You can hide third party tools behind a proxy for example or write your own custom tracking software.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#75

Post by epidemian »

ben0x539 wrote: post #67
epidemian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then you would expect for Chrome to show a higher number of GA blocking "users". But that's not the case: the article mentions that the percentage of users blocking GA on Chrome is on par with Safari.

And I don't know what you mean by "serious". The most common crawlers (Google, Baidu, Yandex, etc) identify themselves as bots on the User-Agent very clearly. Personally, those are the ones that I'd call the most "serious". And also the ones which I've seen generating the most on servers.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#77

Post by hinkley »

eli wrote: post #43
peteretep wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Server-side analytics will tell you in most cases, and if they don’t, they’re easy to add in a way that makes them unlikely to be blocked?

Server side analytics are overwhelmed by bots and crawlers and other non humans in my experience

Maybe we should we whitelisting for analytics. Instead of perpetually trying to identify bots, Pick the 20% of your users who you are pretty sure are actually humans. Nielsen-style, if you will.

Maybe two cohorts. The people we're really sure about, and the ones we're pretty sure about. If they diverge, ask why.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#78

Post by mobjack »

cortesoft wrote: post #8
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have analyzed their logs.

Not everything is visible in normal server side logs, especially if they have a lot of client side actions.

Then create a custom endpoint that records those client side interactions in a database.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#79

Post by hinkley »

cgriswald wrote: post #48
thanhhaimai wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I turned off my Windows 10 Telemetry, I expressed a clear choice that I'd rather not give my data, and it's fine for my voice to not be heard. I just really don't care about Windows 10 that much. On the other hand, I turned on all the telemetry for OctoPi, Steam, and a bunch of other softwares I care about. I want my voice to be heard for those cases. Just curious, what's so inexcusable about that?

How I use a software is not an indication of how I want to use a software. It’s what I’m doing with the options the software has given. If I’m really lucky, I’ll be like everyone else, and an inefficiency in the software will be spotted and fixed so the software will be slightly easier to use. In practice, I’m just doing workarounds to accomplish things the telemetry won’t explain on its own; and even if other users…

It's not even the options the software has given. It's the options you have awareness and recall of being given.

It's very valuable feedback to hear, "wait, it does that?" Yeah, we spend a quarter million dollars on a feature that our users don't even know exists.

Re: How many users block Google analytics? (2017)

#80

Post by [deleted] »

roblabla wrote: post #72
ozi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. "Inexcusable" seems a bit extreme. Are you suggesting companies spend 10x on manual user research? Are you willing to pay more for a product because of increased costs to understand what users actually want?

Yes, I expect them to do manual user research. And “making the users pay” is the wrong way to frame this - product pricing and labor aren’t that tightly correlated. Besides, When we bought magazines the editors didn’t know what stories people were reading or what words you were spending more time reading. When you buy a tool the manufacturer doesn’t know how you use it. Why software gets a free pass at getting all th…

[deleted]
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