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An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

plausible.io

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Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#301

Post by dhimes »

booi wrote: post #163
dhimes wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that for information search intent is a poor pre-qualifier for sales leads.

What would you recommend is better than someone literally searching for something you could provide?

Oh, that's too easy: Something that indicates the person is willing to make a purchase. My guess is you do searched all day long, and if you saw ads (you probably block them) you wouldn't buy much.

Where do you go when you want to buy something? Google? Probably not. That's why Amazon is dominating. Google can be used for branding, I'm told, and that's important- but requires a different mindset.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#302

Post by shubidubi »

I liked it when you announce it's open source till I checked your Github page:

> At the moment we don't provide support for easily self-hosting the code. Currently, the purpose of keeping the code open-source is to be transparent with the community about how we collect and process data.

So basically you ask people to work for free on something only you can use? No thank you.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#303

Post by joshyi »

smacktoward wrote: post #46
saagarjha wrote: post #33

If this is your personal website, one option to consider is dropping the analytics completely. Do you really need to know exactly (and it’s not even that exact, since people block or can’t load your analytics) how many people viewed your blog posts? Anecdotally, if you put your email at the bottom of the page you’ll get a pretty good idea just from the number of people who send you one.

Or just do it the old fashioned way - have the server keep an access log, then use something like GoAccess ( https://goaccess.io/ ) to produce reports from it. It’s not real-time reporting, but then you probably don’t need real-time reporting for your personal site anyway.

It is 100% real-time. https://rt.goaccess.io/

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#304

Post by ses1984 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #210
ses1984 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opting out of targeted ads is NOT the same as opting out of tracking.

But it's what GP asked for. I'm also unclear on whether "opting out of tracking" under the definition you're implying is possible. Any entity tracking you needs to track that you've opted out of tracking, which requires tracking you. Whoops.

I reject the idea that you have to be tracked to not be tracked.

Imagine a system where you opt in to tracking, if you are not opted in, no data about you is written into any system used for business analysis.

Of course you can't/shouldn't stop all writes to your systems, like server access logs, but you can draw a line between operational and business data.

Of course if you have access to both operational and business data sets you can analyze data for people who have not opted in, but I would rather live in a world where we at least try to enforce a separation between the two.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#305

Post by smacktoward »

joshyi wrote: post #303
smacktoward wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just do it the old fashioned way - have the server keep an access log, then use something like GoAccess ( https://goaccess.io/ ) to produce reports from it. It’s not real-time reporting, but then you probably don’t need real-time reporting for your personal site anyway.

It is 100% real-time. https://rt.goaccess.io/

Oh cool, I didn’t realize GoAccess could do that! Thanks!

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#306

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

Yizahi wrote: post #299
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, a few objections. Most sites that use Google Analytics are not owned by monopolies or duopolies, so that aspect of your comment does not really apply. I also don't know if your claim r.e. malicious purposes is true. Probably depends on whose definition of malicious you're talking about. > That customer model is a mental construct of said companies. Well enough, but as I said, it's the one they care about. You see…

I suspect that we won't agree on global and complex issues like GA or surveillance (metadata = surveillance after all, see (1)). But I want to discuss more specific issue - "monist model". I disagree that defining what people buy is approximately what people want. Yes, it is in some narrow scope, but that is not all. I can't buy what I want if it doesn't exist, right? And is I buy picking from two set choices while I…

Just a minor clarification. When I was speaking of customers, I was speaking in aggregate. I'm not making a claim that all individual customers are having their expressions adequately expressed by their purchasing decisions.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#307

Post by zepto »

ec109685 wrote: post #292
eli wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication here being Google might be conducting a massive illegal conspiracy to mine data they don’t have rights to use? I do not buy it.

Especially given the multi-billion dollar fine if they were caught.

I agree they probably aren’t doing it, but there is almost zero chance of a multi-billion dollar fine.

They’d just explain it away as an error and be given a few million dollar slap on the wrist.

It would be very easy for Google to make a plain language public statement about this and clear things up, the way Apple goes about their privacy/data handling.

It’s not a good sign that they choose not to.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#308

Post by megous »

eli wrote: post #287
megous wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may remove legal basis for using the data, but it certainly doesn't remove their abilities.

The implication here being Google might be conducting a massive illegal conspiracy to mine data they don’t have rights to use? I do not buy it.

Implication is that they have the ability. The only thing that removes their ability for targetting and tracking you is to block them at the browser or network level. Ie. don't give them the data in the first place.

Legal action against a multi-billion dollar corp. is the most expensive and about the last option for defending privacy of normal people.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#309

Post by gamblor956 »

orangesquirrel wrote: post #199
gamblor956 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Photoshop alternatives because they're cheaper than maintaining a perpetual license/subscription, but Photoshop is the big gorilla because it is the best photo editing app in the industry today. Bar none. And that's what lets them get away with their pricing structure. Nobody would pay for Photoshop if it didn't provide value.

I am (1) a current Photoshop CC subscriber and (2) an owner of the second-to-last version of Photoshop that was available under a perpetual license, and I disagree that Photoshop is the best photo editing app in the industry today. For photo retouching, I prefer Affinity Photo. One thing I especially appreciate about it is how efficient it is at handling large, 16-bit-per-channel images with many layers. Photoshop is…

I also have Photoshop CC and Affinity Photo, and while I use AP for the simple stuff, it can't hold a candle to the more advanced stuff you can do in Photoshop that is still on the (long-term) plan for AP.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#310

Post by SkyMarshal »

carlisle_ wrote: post #264
lghh wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have been more clear - reading the content of the link.

You mean at the very end of the article after they finish trashing GA?

No, just read the TOC. The last two items, especially the one that says “Give Plausible a Try”, make it clear when combined with the big “Plausible” logo in the top left of the website (or the “plausible.io” domain you can see in the HN submission title) that this is a blog post by the company Plausible listing reasons why their major competitor is flawed and advocating their own product as an alternative.

You don’t have to read to the end of the article to know this, it’s communicated in the TOC at the very start. They could hardly be more transparent if they tried. This is not a submarine article, people are knee-jerk making this into something it isn’t.

http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

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