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0 second visits according to Google Analytics

paweljaniak.co.za

11–20 of 59 posts

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#11
post #9
post #5

I block google analytics with noscript. No downside for me.

Well, there's a downside in the sense that no-one will ever see how you use web sites, so when they change their behaviour and break functionality you used to use, you'll have no-one but yourself to blame.

Is that the best argument you can make for why he should turn GA back on?

If so, I think I should block GA to reduce the length of the interval of unresponsiveness while the "on load" JavaScript runs.

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#12
post #6

Honest question here: Why do all this? If there are no secondary source of data that one can observe (subscriptions, adclicks, citations, google link scores...), then why spend so much time and energy on statistics?

I'm not the OP, but I have my own personal blog and a lot of side projects I make $0 money on (I don't use ads).

I use Analytics (Google Analytics, Woopra, GoSquared, and ChartBeat (although never at the same time, that would be ridiculous)) for two main reasons.

1) I enjoy looking at analytical data. Something about charts and graphs just intrigues me. Don't even get me started on the netflow statistics I monitor at my job.

2) It's fun to see how many people are viewing my posts. When I get a post that makes it to the front page of HN or Reddit and I get to see the hundreds of thousands of hits my page gets, it gets me excited to keep posting.

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#13
post #9
post #5

I block google analytics with noscript. No downside for me.

Well, there's a downside in the sense that no-one will ever see how you use web sites, so when they change their behaviour and break functionality you used to use, you'll have no-one but yourself to blame.

I don't like google and/or facebook having their tentacles reach out on far more websites than their own. I'm against centralized data gathering, even if it's futile in this world..

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a downside in the sense that no-one will ever see how you use web sites, so when they change their behaviour and break functionality you used to use, you'll have no-one but yourself to blame.

Is that the best argument you can make for why he should turn GA back on? If so, I think I should block GA to reduce the length of the interval of unresponsiveness while the "on load" JavaScript runs.

What other argument can there possibly be? The benefits to the individual aren't huge. And you're welcome to block GA, I'm just trying to make the point that there is a purpose behind analytics, and it isn't just a sinister conspiracy to take over your life.

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#15
post #9
post #5

I block google analytics with noscript. No downside for me.

Well, there's a downside in the sense that no-one will ever see how you use web sites, so when they change their behaviour and break functionality you used to use, you'll have no-one but yourself to blame.

A very very small price to pay for some sense of privacy online.

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#17
I wonder why Google does not track the time to an event fired on another Google Analytics site. While it might yield strange results if the user closes the browser or opens a page without Google Analytics, it would provide quite accurate results. Of course, this only works if most websites use GA.

Also, I am not a web developer, but is it not possible to specify another GA event in the onbeforeunload function?

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#18
post #6

Honest question here: Why do all this? If there are no secondary source of data that one can observe (subscriptions, adclicks, citations, google link scores...), then why spend so much time and energy on statistics?

I'm not the OP, but I have my own personal blog and a lot of side projects I make $0 money on (I don't use ads). I use Analytics (Google Analytics, Woopra, GoSquared, and ChartBeat (although never at the same time, that would be ridiculous)) for two main reasons. 1) I enjoy looking at analytical data. Something about charts and graphs just intrigues me. Don't even get me started on the netflow statistics I monitor at…

I think this captures it. Its a form of "score" for feedback on an activity, and human nature is such that we like feedback.

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the best argument you can make for why he should turn GA back on? If so, I think I should block GA to reduce the length of the interval of unresponsiveness while the "on load" JavaScript runs.

What other argument can there possibly be? The benefits to the individual aren't huge. And you're welcome to block GA, I'm just trying to make the point that there is a purpose behind analytics, and it isn't just a sinister conspiracy to take over your life.

I'm sympathetic to the purpose -- I'm less protective of privacy than most here.

My objection is to the means, namely, giving the page's author essentially unlimited access to compute resources on the browser and hoping the author will choose to be moderate.

Until 2008 I browsed the web on a slow machine (Celeron based on a PIII core, probably made in 2000 since the BIOS copyright notice referred to the year 2000) and blocking GA on that machine very drastically reduced the amount of time the browser was unresponsive. So much so as to suggest that even on modern fast hardware, there will probably be some improvement in responsiveness even if the difference will not be immediately noticeable to the user like it was on my old machine.

Re: 0 second visits according to Google Analytics

#20
What is a visit is it the search time or the time I am on the page?

I know I have searched for things that seem to take a long time (when I am in a rush) but the results page show my search took e.g. 0.22 seconds when really the page may have loaded slow or I had to reload the page taking maybe 30 seconds or Google Instant is being annoying.

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