Parse your server's access log file. The way it had been done for decades. "Analog" was popular then, Should be better options now.
I have been using this for a while, GoAccess is a wonderful little tool to automate the parsing. Highly recommend to those who prefer the old-school approach towards web analytics. https://goaccess.io/
I started running goaccess on the reverse proxy in front of computer.rip and some other sites just a few weeks ago... it has answered basically every question I've wanted from simple website analytics and it was very fast to set up and very response. Just a great tool all around.
> you can find out if customers are using your new useful feature or if they can't find it How do you find out if your "useful" feature isn't as useful as you thought it was? Or is it really always "the user can't find it"?
You could talk to your users... (i.e. UX research), observe them using your website or product and ask them non leading probing questions to see what the intent is behind the behaviors affecting your bottom line. Qualitative research methods are a rich source of insight that is typically underinvested and underutilized. Analytics (quantitative data) can help you find areas of bottlenecks to explore further by doing q…
Users hate being bothered and hate taking surveys. Qualitative research isn't scientific anyway.
> Don't use analytics at all but focus on your product. Huh? Analytics is how you focus on your product. By instrumenting your product with analytics, you can find out if customers are using your new useful feature or if they can't find it. If they're performing a task quickly because it's easy, or slowly because they're struggling with the UX. And you find out that customers on a certain mobile device are suffering…
I worked for a tech company popular with enthusiasts when GDPR was first rolled out. We had a lot of requests from users who wanted us to provide their data per the GDPR allowance. We also had an influx of tech journalists filing GDPR requests in hopes of catching us doing something wrong or tracking too much personal data. When we sent users their "data", many of them were in disbelief at how little data they receiv…
>serving relevant ads
Relevant ads are the kind you get on DuckDuckGo: relevant to the content you're looking at. E.g. if you look at a site about origami, you get ads from arts&crafts supply stores.
What you've probably meant are called predatory ads: they chase you around the Web wherever you go, like a predator chases its prey.
I'm coming around to the idea that Google (and Facebook etc) need to be called out and held accountable for the "negative externalities" that come with their business model, the same as if a company was polluting the physical environment. Google has turned much of the internet into a wasteland (there are examples as it related to news in the article but this is true for most content). They don't have to pay for this…
Thanks for succinctly recapping the core issue here. Another externality from all this is the growth of misinformation, which our species seems so unaware and defenseless against.
I seem to recall conspiracy theories abounding in the days of Usenet
I'm coming around to the idea that Google (and Facebook etc) need to be called out and held accountable for the "negative externalities" that come with their business model, the same as if a company was polluting the physical environment. Google has turned much of the internet into a wasteland (there are examples as it related to news in the article but this is true for most content). They don't have to pay for this…
>Google has turned much of the internet into a wasteland
I think I understand what you mean but would benefit from an explanation of that point
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…
> 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. Here’s crazy idea for early humans - do…
Your analogy is not applicable. A better example would be... Well better. Perhaps:
"Here's a crazy idea for early humans - don't map out the location and habits of all the food that you hunt to maximize the number you kill, instead focus on improving the tools that you hunt with so you can reliably kill what you need. Only focus on maximizing kills when you start needing more food than you can find."
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…
Another headache induced by analytics is how one will sometimes need to discard an efficient and effective feature design and build it differently in order to be able to track use of the feature properly. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the amount of time and energy burned on implementing analytics equals or exceeds that of the work on the feature it's tracking.
> Don't use analytics at all but focus on your product. Huh? Analytics is how you focus on your product. By instrumenting your product with analytics, you can find out if customers are using your new useful feature or if they can't find it. If they're performing a task quickly because it's easy, or slowly because they're struggling with the UX. And you find out that customers on a certain mobile device are suffering…
> Analytics isn't just about conversion. Analytics is about the entire product experience. ... which you can entirely do by analyzing web server logs. You dont need google for this, pushing your users (with violation of GDPR consent) into google monstrosity. Dont do that, I block every freaking google domain from cdns, fonts to analytics. But I don't block 1st party analytics. I have no reason to. I have visited your…
I agree that people shouldn't be using Google Analytics. I disagree that people should just rely on their web server logs. Products are more than the data that is being accessed on them - copy and design make a product usable and don't show up on web servers. Am I missing something?
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…
You're essentially saying "don't use data to inform your decisions." This is trolling at best. No idea how this is the top comment here.