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We ditched Google Analytics

missiveapp.com

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Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#41

Post by KingOfCoders »

beardbound wrote: post #23

I have been in the process of moving all of my stuff off of Google services (while I have an excessive amount of free time during Shelter In Place. So I recently moved from Google Analytics to https://usefathom.com . I quite like it. I would like to see how many people read my stuff, but I value my privacy and would like to do the same for others. It's pretty good, and

My problem with usefathom is that their analytics hasn't been prooved in court or by a European GDPR data watchdog to be in the clear of not storing personal information. If you only want to ditch GA because you don't trust Google, then I'd also use usefathom.

I think what they do is very clever, but we settled with SimpleAnalytics instead (not as sophisticated and less analytics, but determine unique visitors by referral is cleaner and enough for us).

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#42

Post by rplnt »

markosaric wrote: post #26
honksillet wrote: post #24

Question: If you don't use google analytics are you penalized in google SEO?

No. Google employees have denied that on multiple occasions[1] [1]: https://plausible.io/blog/google-analytics-seo

The answer to "will using other analytics penalize you?" is "probably". Now let's rephrase the original question, "Will using other analytics penalize you more than using ones from Google?".

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#43

Post by rkwz »

retube wrote: post #37
rkwz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freshlytics - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics * Cookies are not used * Personally identifiable information (PII) is not collected * See the pageview in different dimensions like page urls, referrers, browsers etc * Supports multiple projects * Supports RBAC Screenshots - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/blob/master/docs/sc...

How does it track individual users without cookies?

Yes, it doesn't actually track individual visitors as we can't use cookies or any fingerprinting methods.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#44

Post by edraferi »

rkwz wrote: post #20
dpcan wrote: post #3

Is anyone using an open source statistics system that's as simple as simple analytics? Maybe even something that can be setup to run stats for multiple clients from our own VPS?

Freshlytics - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics * Cookies are not used * Personally identifiable information (PII) is not collected * See the pageview in different dimensions like page urls, referrers, browsers etc * Supports multiple projects * Supports RBAC Screenshots - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/blob/master/docs/sc...

Looks useful, but it depends on PipelineDB, a PostgreSQL extension for streaming data. Unfortunately PipelineDB hasn't been updated since May 2019 [0] when they were acquired by Confluent [1]. The former PipelineDB team appears to be focused on Confluent's KSQL product [2]. There's an open source "ksqlDB" but it appears to depend on Kafka, so it's not a 1:1 replacement for PipelineDB[3].

[0] https://github.com/pipelinedb/pipelinedb

[1] https://www.confluent.io/blog/pipelinedb-team-joins-confluen...

[2] https://www.confluent.io/blog/confluent-cloud-ksql-as-a-serv...

[3] https://ksqldb.io/quickstart.html

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#45

Post by bdefore »

dewey wrote: post #27
ken wrote: post #25

Call me old-fashioned, but if developers really want to minimize their impact on visitors, I wonder why they shifted away from using plain old log files. In the screenshot of the dashboard, "screen size" is the only attribute I see which can't be derived from a web server request log entry. I was using Analog to analyze Apache logs back in the 1990's -- it's older than JS.

Because a lot of times things are hosted on services where you don't have access to raw log files (Netlify for example).

And in the Netlify example, they'll sell you analytics based on the logs (adblocker proof) for $9/month. For one case on a site I operate, the numbers are ~2x higher than GA.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#46

Post by rkwz »

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #22
rkwz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freshlytics - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics * Cookies are not used * Personally identifiable information (PII) is not collected * See the pageview in different dimensions like page urls, referrers, browsers etc * Supports multiple projects * Supports RBAC Screenshots - https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/blob/master/docs/sc...

I really like the look of this. And I really like the response here regarding "blockers" [0]. Is there any documented way to let users opt-out sans ublock:o (or other)? Or configure it to respect "Do Not Track"? [0] https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics/issues/12

Thanks!

> Is there any documented way to let users opt-out sans ublock:o (or other)? Or configure it to respect "Do Not Track"?

I initially wanted to implement DNT but there's a lot of confusion about whether it's useful or not. I'm not sure if there's a standardized way for users to opt-out.

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#47

Post by JackWritesCode »

beardbound wrote: post #23

I have been in the process of moving all of my stuff off of Google services (while I have an excessive amount of free time during Shelter In Place. So I recently moved from Google Analytics to https://usefathom.com . I quite like it. I would like to see how many people read my stuff, but I value my privacy and would like to do the same for others. It's pretty good, and

Fathom has been investing a lot of $ in legal / privacy consultants recently. Excited for the next steps :)

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#48

Post by masonhensley »

dv_dt wrote: post #40
masonhensley wrote: post #9

Nice, idea for someone (I wish I had time)... "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Analytics - Self host analytics - Don't use google analytics - Don't use tracking pixels (FB, Reddit, etc) - etc "Good Housekeeping Seal" for Billing Practices (in same vein, a little off topic though) - Can cancel your subscription online - Sends reminders prior to charging card (dark pattern on some sites) - Open receipt API to scrape out hi…

Incidentally, California state law requires transparency around cancellation of subscriptions. Including online cancellation if the sub was started online. https://blogs.findlaw.com/common_law/2018/07/what-to-know-ab...

Despite that you would be surprised how many companies still make it difficult and employ dark patterns here. Apparently the WSJ only allows that flow for California residents?

https://m.signalvnoise.com/subscription-hostages/

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#49

Post by coronadisaster »

dewey wrote: post #27
ken wrote: post #25

Call me old-fashioned, but if developers really want to minimize their impact on visitors, I wonder why they shifted away from using plain old log files. In the screenshot of the dashboard, "screen size" is the only attribute I see which can't be derived from a web server request log entry. I was using Analog to analyze Apache logs back in the 1990's -- it's older than JS.

Because a lot of times things are hosted on services where you don't have access to raw log files (Netlify for example).

maybe they should not sellout their users like this and host their own files

Re: We ditched Google Analytics

#50

Post by z3rgl1ng »

bdefore wrote: post #45
dewey wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a lot of times things are hosted on services where you don't have access to raw log files (Netlify for example).

And in the Netlify example, they'll sell you analytics based on the logs (adblocker proof) for $9/month. For one case on a site I operate, the numbers are ~2x higher than GA.

Your GA is almost certainly misconfigured.
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