Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

casparwre.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 401 posts

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#371

Post by shadowfaxRodeo »

heipei wrote: post #3

Here's a crazy idea: Don't use analytics at all but focus on your product. If your success relies solely on "improving conversions" by tracking your users and then changing the position and color of your "Checkout" button then maybe try setting yourself apart such that customers want to buy your product even despite an obnoxious purchasing flow. Only then start optimizing it. More serious thoughts: Google Analytics i…

100% agree. I use server-side analytics for vanity metrics like "unique visits," and a contact form for feedback.

People really appreciate not being tracked, or having to agree to cookies.

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#372

Post by abelaer »

tristor wrote: post #13

After a recent story on HN about all the horrible tracking Disqus started to do after being acquired by an ad-tech company, I ditched it and Google Analytics on my semi-dormant personal website. The process of fixing it got me interested in working on my site again and I ended up upstreaming the patches into the Hugo theme I use[1], so now everyone with that theme can benefit easily. I ended up using GoatCounter[2] a…

I can second this, Goatcounter works really well, and is very easy to set up on e.g. Jekyll pages.

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#373

Post by rghb1989 »

JGM_io wrote: post #345
slavak wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of alternatives to Google Analytics, including open-source software you can self-host so it doesn't share your users' private data with a third party. You don't need to roll your own just to avoid GA.

For example?

https://posthog.com/ is one i've been playing around with lately.

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#374

Post by ss64 »

dheera wrote: post #125
heipei wrote: post #3

Here's a crazy idea: Don't use analytics at all but focus on your product. If your success relies solely on "improving conversions" by tracking your users and then changing the position and color of your "Checkout" button then maybe try setting yourself apart such that customers want to buy your product even despite an obnoxious purchasing flow. Only then start optimizing it. More serious thoughts: Google Analytics i…

PSA: Add this to /etc/hosts if you don't want other sites collecting info from you via Google Analytics/Ads 0.0.0.0 googleanalytics.com 0.0.0.0 googlesyndication.com A more complete list of things worth adding to /etc/hosts here (I'm not affiliated with this): https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

The only supported way to block GA without breaking pages is to use a plug-in https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

No doubt your use of the plug in is logged somewhere.

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#375

Post by KSteffensen »

JGM_io wrote: post #345
slavak wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of alternatives to Google Analytics, including open-source software you can self-host so it doesn't share your users' private data with a third party. You don't need to roll your own just to avoid GA.

For example?

The article suggests some

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#376

Post by XCSme »

pcstl wrote: post #238
musicale wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can turn it off. ;-) I guess the point is not that crash reports and slowdown data aren't useful (they are), but that they tend to give you incremental improvements. That being said, incremental improvements over a decade can make a big difference, as Apple also demonstrates.

I guess we can all agree that if someone wants to include analytics in their product, an opt-out would be nice.

Well, you can't really opt-out of all analytics. It's really hard to completely stop all server logs, or them tracking how many purchases you make (eg. invoices).

Where exactly do we draw the line to what's core for a company to track in order to run their business and what can be opt-out?

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#377

Post by XCSme »

aembleton wrote: post #263

This ends with the author promoting his new 'bootstrapped app': https://keepthescore.co/ That website uses Google Analytics!

To be honest, I also advocate pro-privacy and have built a self-hosted analytics platform, BUT I still have sites on which I have Google Ads and Google Analytics. I still have them on mostly because I don't maintain them anymore, and spending the time to fix and remove all 3rd party dependencies for a site that I don't maintain anymore is not really something I want to do. The alternative would be to completely delete the site, but it still has useful information for some people so I keep it alive.

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#378

Post by XCSme »

unishark wrote: post #269
crazygringo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they simply aren't going to show me how to create an ingenious idea that takes things to the next level. Of course not. There's no substitute for straight-up creativity and deep thinking. But once you have your ingenious idea, you still have to design it, make sure it's clear to users, that they find it and can use it effectively. Your "ingenious idea" may turn out to be largely sabotaged if a button you though…

If you are unable to find out that 90 percent of people can't use a major feature that you thought would differentiate your product, you are missing all forms of feedback, including much more important sources besides analytics.

> if you are unable to find out that 90 percent of people can't use a major feature

How would the users know they can't use a feature they don't know it exists?

Let's say you add a brilliant new feature X, but due to a bug the users can't load the code for that feature so they never see it. How would they know to submit a form feedback for a feature they don't know it's there?

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#379

Post by johannes1234321 »

crazygringo wrote: post #275
unishark wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are unable to find out that 90 percent of people can't use a major feature that you thought would differentiate your product, you are missing all forms of feedback, including much more important sources besides analytics.

I disagree completely because I've seen it in practice. A button turns out to be below the fold on common small screen sizes that a new designer forgot to consider. A bad translation results in 90% of users in a particular country misunderstanding something. A JavaScript library doesn't work on a common Android phone you don't test with. Latency issues make something virtually unusable from the other side of the coun…

If you see in your backend metrics, that a button isn't clicked by a huge number of visitors you can start there and analyze. Common screen sizes are helpful, but more helpful is to look at the page since maybe other optimisations can be made, if that is the important button.

Similarly with languages, that you cans er from backend metrics.

More data seems always nice, but analyzing more data isn't making analysis simpler and there is a big privacy impact in analytics, especially when outsourcing to data collectors, who can gather data across sites. (Which then also gives Google information which services are interesting to user and can be integrated into search etc.)

Re: Google Analytics: Stop feeding the beast

#380

Post by blacklion »

I wonder, is it I'm so unlucky or what?

All these articles about surveillance capitalism promises me very precise targeted ads (quote from this article: "Google uses its extensive knowledge of you to show you advertising that fits you like a tailor-made suit.").

But I didn't get that at all. All I get is generic advertisements, often for services or goods which are not available in my region (!).

Examples:

(1) I've made my first Instagram post when I've been traveling in Myanmar. I had account for several months already, and I was subscribed for my friends & family and several thematic accounts, but my first post was some travel photo from Myanmar. After that year and a half (!!!) I was feed only by Myanmar ads in Instagram. I was in Myanmar for a 3 weeks, but still! Yes, it is not Google, it is FB.

(2) I'm seeing only two types of ads on Youtube: generic ads of food delivery services in my country (I never use them) and a lot of ads for UK bank and cell services. And also UK Amazon and UK Youtube Premium ads (with prices in pounds). Yes, I have IPv6 tunnel to UK, it is right. But I don't think that IP-based ads is "Google knows anything about me".

Banners are not better: generic AliExpress and some strange mixed offers which looks like same AliExpressdrop-shipping at best and scam at worst.

Google (and FB) could know, that I like DIY, electronics and motorcycles. I can not hide that. But I don't see ANY relevant ads on ANY global platform.

Where are there "tailored ads"? Did you see them?

Country-local advertisement network shows me goods which I searched for on local marketplace (after I bought one, of course), it is somewhat relevant (but, again, mostly useless), but global Ads giants who "knows everything about me" shows only generic or complete irrelevant crap.

I'm using GMail a lot, my primary search engine is Google, I have huge youtube subscription list (so, my interests must be obvious), but no, not a single piece of relevant ad from Google or FB.

Post reply on HN