Removing Google Analytics improves Search Rankings?

[lwliang1]

I met a friend the other day who told me that there have been a few articles and reports saying that removing Google Analytics from your websites, plus uninstalling it from your Google Analytics account will actually help your pages rank better in Google Search.

Any idea if this is true?

It sounds a bit dubious, why would Google penalize people on their own search engine while using their tools?

[F1SEO]

I think that one is a bit of an urban myth with no substance to it. I've heard other people say that a Google sitemap impedes rankings too - but there's never any proof.

[millerb7]

I'm gonna go with urban legend as well. Nobody can ever produce proof and like you said, to me it just makes no sense for google to penalize you for that.

[pyrmontvillage]

It Depends

[gman2319]

Maybe, the logic behind such a statement is. Having google analytics set up on your account would mean that google has access to stuff like your bounce rate and customer loyalty and how well your content is doing.
Such data does play a role in google ranking you ....google does get such data from its toolbars but still...one can never be sure.

[raj5151]

there is no any proof about this..

[christineconte]

just throwing out an idea here - maybe it's kinda like checking your weight on a scale everyday while you're trying to lose weight - the more you check the worse you feel!

maybe by not having analytics to look at, you stop checking as often - which gives the site more time to increase its rankings



hey - i said it was just an idea!

[HunterSnake]

Google PageSpeed is a factor in rankings. I recently stuck my Google Analytics code in a .js file so that it may be cached and return a code 304 rather than fetched repeatedly as the user browses my site.

This increased the speed with which my pages load and helped reduce my code vs. content ratio, both of which matter to SEO. Additionally, I save bandwidth and server resources. =)

So, if people are reporting that removing Google Analytics helped their rankings, its probably for the reasons mentioned above: PageSpeed, less on-page code / higher content vs. code.

Just my two cents.

[lwliang1]

Thanks for the feedback guys...

Personally I think it's an urban myth, if anything it's probably the load speed of the webpages without GA that makes them rank better.

... although I wouldn't be suprised if Google did make a decision based on your Google analytics stats, like bounce rate and all.

Haha well I'm still waiting for my friend to send me the articles which he said 'prooves' that the urban legend is in fact, true... :|

[wkathome]

Hopefully there's no validity to Google analytic's hurting your page rankings but the way Google has been acting lately, hard telling what they are up to.

[HunterSnake]

Originally Posted by lwliang1

Thanks for the feedback guys...

Personally I think it's an urban myth, if anything it's probably the load speed of the webpages without GA that makes them rank better.

You're welcome, and that's what I think, too.

Originally Posted by lwliang1

... although I wouldn't be suprised if Google did make a decision based on your Google analytics stats, like bounce rate and all.

Who knows. It's possible. I wouldn't be surprised if they used stuff like AdSense, Analytics, etc. to gather data about the web sites on which they're utilized.

Originally Posted by lwliang1

Haha well I'm still waiting for my friend to send me the articles which he said 'prooves' that the urban legend is in fact, true... :|

They'll probably never show up. If they do, check the sources of the articles... or where the articles appeared on first. Sounds like total BS to me.

[brettb]

It's another stupid urban myth like ".info sites being bad".

However, sometimes JavaScript runs slow and stops humans from being able to view pages. This is probably why this myth arose.