Would removing Analytics affect my site

[Shawn Wilson]

I've done some reading on SEO and I had a site on Page 1, 2nd pos for months. Making so so money via Amazon. I read somewhere that having Google Analytics on my niche site would be detrimental to my position as Google would then have insight into my website. So I removed it a few days ago. I come back today and see I'm not even in the top 100. WTH? I've not changed anything else on my site. Any thoughts?

[wealthydon]

Difficult question! Maybe the new update which
you did when you removed the analytics caused
the shift in your ranking.

Post content at regular interval and you will take
your "rightful place" again. Just my thinking.

[Kurt]

While not really answering your question directly, my feeling about using Analytics is if you're using Adsense on you pages go ahead and use Analytics, as Google already knows everything about your site from just having Adsense.

However, if you're not using Adsense on a site you're better off not giving Google any more info by adding Analytics.

[Shawn Wilson]

I have never had Adsense on this site. Always Amazon. All I did was delete the WP Analytics plugin. This is an aged domain, no new content as it is a review site. I'm just really baffled.

[pixelburn]

Originally Posted by smonty11

I have never had Adsense on this site. Always Amazon. All I did was delete the WP Analytics plugin. This is an aged domain, no new content as it is a review site. I'm just really baffled.

That's insane, i had something similar happen to one of my clients websites and have yet to figure out exactly why my page ranking fell so much. (except in this case, it wasn't WP analytics). The only possible reason for this I can fathom is that somehow depriving google of the information that it had before about your website allowed compeditors providing that information to get ahead... but still this should take ample time not simply happen overnight. Perhaps this is a testament to literal cyberbullying.. Google's bullying the little guy to force us to tip our hands.

Now here's the real test: does adding WP analytics again boost your page rank?

[greatar4]

Originally Posted by smonty11

I have never had Adsense on this site. Always Amazon. All I did was delete the WP Analytics plugin. This is an aged domain, no new content as it is a review site. I'm just really baffled.

That's kind of weird to me. I don't think that having Google analytic can have an impact on your site ranking. Google analytic is a tool that track down how many visitors that you site gets in daily basis. I think what happened to your site may be a coincidence.

[JohnBertagna]

I like Google Analytics, and never had this problem.

I keep Analytics on my sites in case I want to sell the site later on, you can export statistics for a custom time frame in a .pdf to send to a client.

Piwik is a great alternative, it's free and you just install it on your server (easy.)

It's also live too, no more waiting for statistics to update.

[imdomination]

This is totally anecdotal evidence, but I had a site that tanked in the search engines, and after about 6 weeks of it being in the 400-1000 position for all keywords, I got rid of analytics, and 2 days later it now isn't even in the top 1000 for any keywords.

[Stuart william]

According to me google analytics doesn't have any kind of relation with ranking. Its just a code to track no of visitors

[Shawn Wilson]

Well I added WP analytics back this morning. I did notice a competitor for my KW though on 1st page now, that has never existed till now. Hummm.....EMD as mine, but different ext. I'll monitor and see what happens with WPA added back in.

[JamesGw]

I don't understand the issue with giving Google info, for the most part. That said, you shouldn't be negatively effected by removing Analytics.