13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics • Hacker News Board

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#41

Post by Symbiote » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #11

Simon_says wrote: post #3

> How I implemented my study > I installed Google Analytics alongside Plausible Analytics on three sites in June. All he measured was people who load Plausible Analytics and not Google Analytics. Anybody running noscript (like me) wouldn't have shown up here at all.

Even when I run JavaScript (I don’t by default), uBlock Origin blocks https://plausible.io/js/plausible.js through Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list . Not sure if that’s one that’s enabled by default or if it’s one I’ve enabled. So yeah, I would expect the true Google Analytics blockage figure to be markedly higher than the 13% reported here.

It wasn't blocked for me, also with uBlock Origin.

I found that it was only added to _Peter Lowe's_ list yesterday/today, so it wouldn't have affected the statistics for this blogpost

https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?showintro=1&st...

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#42

Post by yonixw » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

lawn wrote: post #39

yonixw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to say, but without analytics and campaign analytics, you probably don't know what your user want or need. I don't like the analytics auto hate behavior. Edit: I don't justify google and facebook wrongdoing in the past and present. But to hate on those who are (forced) using them and calling to remove them from the website is not helping without an alternative. It will surly take a toll on your digital presence…

Why is analytics synonymous with Google analytics?

Duopoly (Duo-monopoly) with Facebook Analytics.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#43

Post by YetAnotherNick » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

lawn wrote: post #39

yonixw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to say, but without analytics and campaign analytics, you probably don't know what your user want or need. I don't like the analytics auto hate behavior. Edit: I don't justify google and facebook wrongdoing in the past and present. But to hate on those who are (forced) using them and calling to remove them from the website is not helping without an alternative. It will surly take a toll on your digital presence…

Why is analytics synonymous with Google analytics?

Is there any difference in privacy from user's perspective if you use Google Analytics or self hosted? If any, the later is more prone to be hacked or misused than former and could not be easily blocked like Google's.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#44

Post by markosaric » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #10

Better way perhaps we do is compare Cloudflare visitors to GA visitors over same time frame. This method doesn’t measure people with JS disabled. I think it’s important to remember also with large numbers a percent of users blocking GA is likely not a big deal - you just want something generally accurate. Switching analytics providers to get more data isn’t in itself a reason to switch. If people care about payload s…

My idea was to use server logs too but AWStats showed more than 100% higher number of unique visitors and more than 18 times higher number in page views (both compared to Plausible numbers) so I excluded it from the study as I thought it’s very inaccurate.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#45

Post by ck_one » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:47 AM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #11

Simon_says wrote: post #3

> How I implemented my study > I installed Google Analytics alongside Plausible Analytics on three sites in June. All he measured was people who load Plausible Analytics and not Google Analytics. Anybody running noscript (like me) wouldn't have shown up here at all.

Even when I run JavaScript (I don’t by default), uBlock Origin blocks https://plausible.io/js/plausible.js through Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list . Not sure if that’s one that’s enabled by default or if it’s one I’ve enabled. So yeah, I would expect the true Google Analytics blockage figure to be markedly higher than the 13% reported here.

Is plausible also blocked when used with a custom domain so that tracking results are POSTed to your own domain?

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#46

Post by YetAnotherNick » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:47 AM UTC

6nf wrote: post #33

yonixw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to say, but without analytics and campaign analytics, you probably don't know what your user want or need. I don't like the analytics auto hate behavior. Edit: I don't justify google and facebook wrongdoing in the past and present. But to hate on those who are (forced) using them and calling to remove them from the website is not helping without an alternative. It will surly take a toll on your digital presence…

You can collect analytics yourself, no Google needed.

Why do you think it increases user's privacy? I don't think Google uses analytics data for tracking the user.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#47

Post by markosaric » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

michael-ax wrote: post #13

says: https://markosaric.com/speed-up-wordpress/ >> Steps I took to make my site speedy and green >>> To not add much additional footprint, I’ve decided not to use Google Analytics, .... .. this is too weird for me.

I installed GA for one month only last month in order to check the data. Now it's GA-free again.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#48

Post by markosaric » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

lrem wrote: post #12

Simon_says wrote: post #3

> How I implemented my study > I installed Google Analytics alongside Plausible Analytics on three sites in June. All he measured was people who load Plausible Analytics and not Google Analytics. Anybody running noscript (like me) wouldn't have shown up here at all.

How hard is it these days to tell humans from bots in server logs?

My idea was to use server logs too but AWStats showed more than 100% higher number of unique visitors and more than 18 times higher number in page views (both compared to Plausible numbers) so I excluded it from the study as I thought it’s very inaccurate.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#49

Post by tannhaeuser » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:50 AM UTC

Could we establish a convention of adding "(ga'd)", "(pixel'd)" and/or "(GDPR'd)" here on HN, similar to what we do with rehashed stories by putting the year into braces after the title?. While we're at it, maybe we should also use "(paywalled)" because that's a frequent complaint?

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#50

Post by petargyurov » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 9:51 AM UTC

On my website [0] I opted not to use Google Analytics or any other invasive trackers.

We use SimpleAnalytics and so far I really like it. Yes, it's "simpler" in that you get less data but honestly, I think people over-value some of the data they get from GA. A lot of it is superflous.

[0] https://makely.me