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Google Analytics Alternatives?

by Frederik Jorgensen
10 replies
I no longer use Google Analytics to track my website, because... Well.. I'm paranoid of Google, ok?!

Now I need a new way to track my websites. So what do you use to track your website(s)?

Thanks in advance,
Frederik
#alternatives #analytics #google
  • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
    Originally Posted by Frederik Jorgensen View Post

    I no longer use Google Analytics to track my website, because... Well.. I'm paranoid of Google, ok?!

    Now I need a new way to track my websites. So what do you use to track your website(s)?
    I still use Google Analytics, myself. What's to hide? Even without their Analytics code in your HTML, they have access to your bounce-rate and so on.

    But anyway, I've heard good things about both Clicky, a free, third-party hosted service, and Piwik, a free, open-source, self-hosted script.

    Good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dawn Wise
      Originally Posted by DireStraits View Post

      I still use Google Analytics, myself. What's to hide? Even without their Analytics code in your HTML, they have access to your bounce-rate and so on.
      No, not quite. Without Analytics, Adsense, or +1 code etc on your site, they won't know your bounce rate. Without having direct access to data, they could make some estimates and inferences about your bounce rate, but they still won't know your bounce rate.

      I use Open Web Analytics because it provides some good reporting and some features that GA doesn't.
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      • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
        Originally Posted by Dawn Wise View Post

        No, not quite. Without Analytics, Adsense, or +1 code etc on your site, they won't know your bounce rate. Without having direct access to data, they could make some estimates and inferences about your bounce rate, but they still won't know your bounce rate.

        I use Open Web Analytics because it provides some good reporting and some features that GA doesn't.
        Well yes, okay, I appreciate they won't read it quite so accurately, but they can quite easily determine when a user clicks the "back" button, which is still a bounce (notice how when you click "Back" and return to the Google results page, they ask(ed) if you want to "Block this site from the results", or whatever) and have blocking data, etc. The point is that Google still has a lot of information at their disposal with which to make ranking decisions if they so choose, if that really factors in much at all right now.
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        • Profile picture of the author Mosa
          You can try out the Slim Stat plugin if you're using wordpress. I find that one to be a decent alternative...although analytics is probably the best.
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        • Profile picture of the author Dawn Wise
          Originally Posted by DireStraits View Post

          Well yes, okay, I appreciate they won't read it quite so accurately, but they can quite easily determine when a user clicks the "back" button, which is still a bounce (notice how when you click "Back" and return to the Google results page, they ask(ed) if you want to "Block this site from the results", or whatever) and have blocking data, etc. The point is that Google still has a lot of information at their disposal with which to make ranking decisions if they so choose, if that really factors in much at all right now.
          You might consider that people don't arrive to sites only from the Google SERPs. They can come from other sites, email, other search engines, or type in traffic.

          Google does have a lot of information at their disposal (sometimes), but it is reliable in proportion to how much of your traffic comes from Google properties or from sites that have tracking codes pertaining to google properties (Adsense, +1, etc).
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  • Profile picture of the author nadia712
    Nothing beats Google for the price. Care to share your conspiracy theory? ;-)
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Im more pissed about them hiding search referral data.

    I dont appreciate logging in to see "not provided" on all my leading keywords.

    NUMBSKULLS!
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    BS free SEO services, training and advice - SEO Point

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  • Profile picture of the author Frederik Jorgensen
    @DireStraits
    Thank you for the suggestions! I've been trying these 2 services over the last couple of days, although GetClicky says I have no visitors (which is wrong) and Piwik is alright, but still like Google Analytics way more.

    @nadia712
    No crazy conspiracy theory I guess, just read a couple of places that you should avoid connecting your site directly to Google (Google Analytics in this case) as that would make it easier for them to penalize it and when my good IM friend said it too... But I guess I'll stick with Google Analytics, because I don't like any of the other analytics to far...

    @John Romaine
    Yeah, that's really annoying.
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  • Profile picture of the author Frederik Jorgensen
    @Dawn Wise
    It looks good, can it track multiply websites at once, like give an overview of all your websites or do you have to install it onto every domain?

    @Mosa
    Cool, I'll have a look at it :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author atrbiz
    I've heard great things about Piwik - Web analytics - Open source , I'm def going to test it out on one of my sites. You can always run G analytics with another web analytics software.
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