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quantcast tracking code is nice, small and fast. By comparison, google tracking code is unfortunately massive. It sets a ton of cookies, which are then sent wi

by axod 16y ago

quantcast tracking code is nice, small and fast. By comparison, google tracking code is unfortunately massive. It sets a ton of cookies, which are then sent with every single request to your server. Wasting bandwidth. It's worse if you have it on subdomains, since then it'll set even more cookies, and send even more crap to your server every single request. For a website with a large number of reloads, or ajax or comet, this can be a complete killer.

wanderr 16y ago
Quantcast has no asyncronous tracking. If their servers are running slow at all, their javascript will block your site from loading, even if you have it at the bottom. I know this because it happened to us. We contacted them about it but they have no solution,they don't seem to think it's a problem since "most of the time" their servers are up and quite fast. Marketing requires the tracking, so our solution is to host their javascript on our server and run a cron nightly to redownload the code from their servers in the hopes that we'll never get so far behind that the tracking stops working. So far, so good. Google, on the other hand, offers an asyncronous, non-blocking solution. Much better.
- axod 16y ago
  async tracking helps if the size of the download is large. In that case, a small stub of js is loaded, execution continues, and the large payload is downloaded async. But the tracking code is small. It's not going to make much difference at all IMHO (And anecdotally in my experience). Async vs sync, you're still going to have a DNS lookup, and an initial GET unless it's cached. Both can block your site from loading...
  - mrkurt 16y ago
    Google Analytics doesn't load any stubs for async tracking, it inlines an array of "events to send" and then loads the entire GA script asynchronously. Once it's done, it runs through the list of things to track.

by axod 16y ago

wanderr 16y ago

Quantcast has no asyncronous tracking. If their servers are running slow at all, their javascript will block your site from loading, even if you have it at the bottom. I know this because it happened to us. We contacted them about it but they have no solution,they don't seem to think it's a problem since "most of the time" their servers are up and quite fast. Marketing requires the tracking, so our solution is to host their javascript on our server and run a cron nightly to redownload the code from their servers in the hopes that we'll never get so far behind that the tracking stops working. So far, so good. Google, on the other hand, offers an asyncronous, non-blocking solution. Much better.

axod 16y ago
async tracking helps if the size of the download is large. In that case, a small stub of js is loaded, execution continues, and the large payload is downloaded async. But the tracking code is small. It's not going to make much difference at all IMHO (And anecdotally in my experience). Async vs sync, you're still going to have a DNS lookup, and an initial GET unless it's cached. Both can block your site from loading...
- mrkurt 16y ago
  Google Analytics doesn't load any stubs for async tracking, it inlines an array of "events to send" and then loads the entire GA script asynchronously. Once it's done, it runs through the list of things to track.