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13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

markosaric.com

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Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#121

Post by idoubtit »

How many sites break because of Google Analytics being blocked? Do they even realize that their content appears broken?

Many sites use JavaScript client-rendering, even for static content. Sometimes, the analytics failure blocks the rendering. I've experimented it recently, with a blank page for a French governmental site (securite routiere) and with a truncated content for an American newspaper (Boston Globe, IIRC).

When you send a server-rendered page, you know the content is present, and very probably it renders correctly on the client. Transmission errors are logged by the web server. With a SPA, many factors could break the rendering, and the web server won't hear about it unless hard work is done to collect JS errors.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#122

Post by paulie_a »

yonixw wrote: post #31
onion2k wrote: post #4

None of my website users need to block Google Analytics.

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…

It doesn't seem like even with analytics they know

It just gives a false confidence in bullshit.

Most internet analytics and the billions spent on data mining is all for naught.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#124

Post by ubercow13 »

>But Linux is also the least popular of the operating systems with only 8% of the total laptop/desktop market.

That sounds very high, I thought it was still ~1-2%?

Shouldn't Firefox block GA by default now since they enabled enhanced tracking protection by default? I'm surprised the number for Firefox is so low.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#125

Post by vntok »

markosaric wrote: post #47
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.

This is like reading books with one's reading glasses on for a while, then off for a while, then on again for a while.

In Web analytics the medium to long term trend almost always trumps individual data points. Those don't mean a thing and can actually be bad for the business owners if "corrective" actions get taken based upon them.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#126

Post by rchaud »

badRNG wrote: post #106
toomanybeersies wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that 30-40% on all platforms or just desktop though? I don't have an ad blocker on my phone, yet use ublock origin on my Macbook + Chrome. I suspect this is pretty common, as it's harder to set up ad blocking for your mobile browser than desktop.

uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger work on FF for Android

FF's market share on Android is very small. Chrome is the default browser and does not support any kind of adblocking. Oddly enough, Samsung's built-in browser does support adblock through an extension.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#127

Post by lmkg »

b112 wrote: post #117
angus-prune wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard agree. You don't describe the business problem, but go into incredible detail about technical details that either nobody reading the email[1] cares about. Even more than that - you're basically asking them to run random bash commands from the internet. They shouldn't trust your advice, anything you say would have to be verified by their own team, so the level of technical info is useless to them. In fact, includ…

I get it, please see my other response. RE: random bash commands. Part of the reason I linked shopify's SPF page to them -- an attempt to provide external validation. But I get it. Which is why, as I mention in that other response, it doesn't matter what I send. Even pleas to forward to a technical person = ignored. (I bet lots of tech people get forwarded all sorts of crap that IS a scam, so yell "DON'T FORWARD THIS…

Tell them that you placed an order, and did not receive a confirmation email. If you really feel obligated, you can mention something about SPF settings, but I literally would not provide more detail than "it might be related to your SPF settings."

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#128

Post by Simon_says »

markosaric wrote: post #48
lrem wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a tough problem.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#129

Post by sigwinch28 »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #119
sigwinch28 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is: it depends. The GDPR allows for collection and processing without consent for several reasons including (but not limited to) legal requirement (e.g. anti-fraud) and legitimate interests (e.g. app install conversions). The GDPR is also quite clear that consent is not required to collect _anonymous_ data, i.e. data which in no way can be traced back to the individual, but this requires balancing with the…

It's not so easy, as anonymization is also considered a processing activity (there is still a debate around this but the legal opinion around this seems to solidify), so you cannot just say "I'm anonymizing this data so I can collect it without asking". You will need a legal basis for processing your customers information. Also, the ePrivacy directive (and the upcoming ePivacy regulation) impose additional constraint…

I feel like you've moved the goalposts on me since the parent was referring to GDPR, and so was I, and now you've brought up the ePrivacy stuff.

Furthermore, it only counts as processing under the GDPR if anonymisation was performed as a step on some data already covered on the GDPR. Ergo, if the data originally collected qualifies as anonymous data, then processing it is not covered by the GDPR.

Re: 13% of my website visitors block Google Analytics

#130

Post by sandworm101 »

salicideblock wrote: post #68

Seeing that Plausible Analytics is not using cookies and instead hashes fields including IP address - the measure of "unique site visitors" could be a proxy for false uniques by Plausible Analytics. For example, an user visits once via his data connection and once via wifi - Plausible may see different users where Google's cookie will pin it as one user. Another interesting result is the 16% of total page views - I d…

I don't see why the focus is on "unique" visitors. To compare to older media, if someone buys two newspapers then they are a double-good customer. Either they are spending so much time reading it themselves that they need two copies (ie reading via two devices/IP addresses) or they are giving that second copy to a friend (two people, one device). So imho page view should be valid regardless of uniqueness (absent bot detection etc).
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