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Is google analytics bad for affiliates?

by ibmethatswhoib
5 replies
Noob here!

Love the site and all the help it looks like people give each other. I have a couple questions, I'm a new affiliate and I have been reading different places that people are getting rid of their google analytics if there affiliates because they think it could hurt their rankings if google has too much info on their site, any truth to this in anyone's expirience?

Also if anybody knows, I created some posts on wordpress that got indexed and now I want to change the permalinks that got indexed, what's the best way for seo. It's called a 404 redirect right? if so is there a good plugin for that or should I just change it and let google catch up?

Thanks a lot
#affiliates #analytics #bad #google
  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Originally Posted by ibmethatswhoib View Post

    Noob here!

    Love the site and all the help it looks like people give each other. I have a couple questions, I'm a new affiliate and I have been reading different places that people are getting rid of their google analytics if there affiliates because they think it could hurt their rankings if google has too much info on their site, any truth to this in anyone's expirience?
    I don't use GA on some of my stuff. I don't have any proof at all, but the fact is Google has a LOT of information about our online property anyway, I would rather keep that to a minimum as much as possible. Some say that they use the bounce rate as an indicator for ranking. Webmaster Tools too - if you register all your sites there, well, then they know you are the owner of all of them and maybe they disregard interlinking between them then..! Who knows, but I'd rather stay on the safe side! On a low-traffic site (most of mine ) I prefer to use a server-side PHP-based solution.


    Originally Posted by ibmethatswhoib View Post

    Also if anybody knows, I created some posts on wordpress that got indexed and now I want to change the permalinks that got indexed, what's the best way for seo. It's called a 404 redirect right? if so is there a good plugin for that or should I just change it and let google catch up?
    Thanks a lot
    Actually, a 301 redirect. If there is some kind of standard change you made to your links, like got rid of the year from the url, or something, then you could do those redirects in .htaccess - you'd have to ask someone over the Programming forum, or on a specialised site about that, it can be tricky, I hate .htaccess...

    But if your site isn't seeing a lot of traffic then I think you would be fine to just let Google play catchup, might just be less hassle, especially if you've got a lot of pages.

    FWIW, I have had this situation a couple of times and always managed to fix it with an .htaccess rule.
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  • Profile picture of the author danayala
    Hey there!

    In my experience with Google Analytics, I have not seen any adverse effects in affiliate terms. As far as I know, it's just getting stats. It would be useful to see if anyone has verifiable evidence that Google Analytics hurts their rankings. Then I'd be concerned. In the meantime, a better investment of time would be to start driving traffic!
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  • Profile picture of the author shuvo
    I think google analytics can be useful as you will get various information from here.You can know about the bounce rate which is really important.
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  • Profile picture of the author LMC
    The truth of the matter is...

    It can hurt. or I can help.

    If you have a horrible website with high bounce rates above 80% and very short lived visitor lengths, this WILL take an effect into your SERPs.

    On the other hand, allowing Google to personally experience your site with great visitor retention and low bounce rates, things might be good for you.

    I use GA on most of my sites unless they are getting crappy and outdated and I don't feel like updating them, I will move GA off of them and use something like

    FREE Web Stats and Analytics, Page Rank, SEO Optimization, Website Tools and Search Engine Marketing - Are you GoingUp?
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    • Profile picture of the author gibsonfan57
      I hope not, I have it on a few of my sites
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