I’m working on a leaner and more transparent alternative to Google Analytics without all the privacy baggage. It’s called Plausible Analytics and you can see the live demo here.

Google Analytics has been in the news as Apple announced that the upcoming version of Safari will start blocking Google Analytics from cross-site tracking. Site owners now fear that Google Analytics stats may become less accurate.

Here’s a look at other reasons why I believe you should stop using Google Analytics on your site and help create a more open, independent web that’s more friendly to your visitors. Let’s start.

It’s owned by Google, the largest ad-tech company in the world

53% of all sites on the web track their visitors using Google Analytics. 84% of sites that do use a known analytics script use Google Analytics. It’s the most popular third-party request on the web accounting for 0.64% of all network requests.

Google Analytics is run by the largest ad-tech company in the world. A company with a business model that loves to devour all the personal data it can get access to. Google’s products are free to use because Google has built its wealth by collecting huge amounts of personal information and using these personal and behavioural insights to sell targeted advertising.

It’s a bloated script that affects your site speed

Web analytics like any other element add extra page weight. Google’s Global Site Tag and the Universal Analytics script can be considered bloat if you only care about the most useful website stats and want to make your site as lean and fast as possible.

Global Site Tag, the recommended way of integrating Google Analytics, weights 28 KB and it downloads another JavaScript file which adds an additional 17.7 KB to your page size. Every KB matters when you want to keep your site fast to load.

It’s overkill for the majority of site owners

For most site owners, the amount of data Google Analytics collects is overkill. Most people find real and regular use for only a fraction of the metrics it measures.

Google Analytics has more than 125 different reports and more than 290 different metrics you can gather your insights from. Analyzing these is a full-time job that requires a lot of time, effort, expertise and experience to do well.

#business #privacy #technology #marketing #analytics #data analytic