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Google Analytics is the best analytics tool out there. By getting their companies off GA, European governments are weakening their industry. This probably hol

by TekMol 5y ago

Google Analytics is the best analytics tool out there. By getting their companies off GA, European governments are weakening their industry. This probably holds true for many SAAS products. Many of the best are from the USA. Forbidding European companies to use them is a desaster for the European internet industry.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
Google Analytics is hugely overrated. Most people don't use it properly, many browsers block it entirely, and you can usually do a better job just by looking at server logs.
- TekMol 5y ago
  Saying so just tells me that you never been analyzing and optimizing websites with millions of users. Websites on which a whole company depends on. It would be a crazy approach to try and do it via server logs.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Actually, there are some nice tools (e.g. GoAccess) that produce pretty graphs. The vast majority of people just want pretty graphs; the more fancy data Google Analytics produces is nowhere near as accurate as the number of trailing non-zero digits would have you believe. Depending on your userbase, the regular traffic data can be off by significant proportions. I've seen pages where the number of logged-in interactions are higher than the number of Google Analytics hits.
  - bovermyer 5y ago
    Server logs aren't the only alternative to Google Analytics. Matomo, Plausible, and Fathom are all perfectly viable.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    But GA is indeed not very useful for many questions. FF blocks it by default. We use server-side stats and for last month I get 30.1% Chrome, 28.8% FF. Now when I compare that to GA: 40% Chrome, 16% FF…
- dewey 5y ago
  > and you can usually do a better job just by looking at server logs Yes, if you only want to count visits and don't have a problem having all bot traffic included. For everything a bit more advanced you need a proper analytics tool.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Filtering out bot traffic is easy enough with server logs. A self-hosted JavaScript analytics tool gives you more data, but Google Analytics filters out Firefox users too; contrary to ReCAPTCHA's apparent beliefs, Firefox users are mostly not bots.
    - Semaphor 5y ago
      > but Google Analytics filters out Firefox users too; contrary to ReCAPTCHA's apparent beliefs, Firefox users are mostly not bots. Isn’t it the other way around? FF by default blocks GA.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        It is. From the perspective of the person choosing an analytics system, it doesn't matter exactly what the reason is, though.
bovermyer 5y ago
You appear to have a very different idea of "best analytics tool" than I do. What is your ranking rubric?
estaseuropano 5y ago
For whom and what purpose is it the best? There are many niche systems that fit specific purposes. Sure GA can benefit from scale and existing profiles with user data gatherer in other context, which a self-hosted solution would not have acces to. But does it address every need better than specific systems? And is the added benefit worth sacrificing your users' data to google?
14 5y ago
You see it as weakening others will see it as strengthening.

by TekMol 5y ago

wizzwizz4 5y ago

Google Analytics is hugely overrated. Most people don't use it properly, many browsers block it entirely, and you can usually do a better job just by looking at server logs.

TekMol 5y ago
Saying so just tells me that you never been analyzing and optimizing websites with millions of users. Websites on which a whole company depends on. It would be a crazy approach to try and do it via server logs.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Actually, there are some nice tools (e.g. GoAccess) that produce pretty graphs. The vast majority of people just want pretty graphs; the more fancy data Google Analytics produces is nowhere near as accurate as the number of trailing non-zero digits would have you believe. Depending on your userbase, the regular traffic data can be off by significant proportions. I've seen pages where the number of logged-in interactions are higher than the number of Google Analytics hits.
- bovermyer 5y ago
  Server logs aren't the only alternative to Google Analytics. Matomo, Plausible, and Fathom are all perfectly viable.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  But GA is indeed not very useful for many questions. FF blocks it by default. We use server-side stats and for last month I get 30.1% Chrome, 28.8% FF. Now when I compare that to GA: 40% Chrome, 16% FF…
dewey 5y ago
> and you can usually do a better job just by looking at server logs Yes, if you only want to count visits and don't have a problem having all bot traffic included. For everything a bit more advanced you need a proper analytics tool.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Filtering out bot traffic is easy enough with server logs. A self-hosted JavaScript analytics tool gives you more data, but Google Analytics filters out Firefox users too; contrary to ReCAPTCHA's apparent beliefs, Firefox users are mostly not bots.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    > but Google Analytics filters out Firefox users too; contrary to ReCAPTCHA's apparent beliefs, Firefox users are mostly not bots. Isn’t it the other way around? FF by default blocks GA.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      It is. From the perspective of the person choosing an analytics system, it doesn't matter exactly what the reason is, though.

bovermyer 5y ago

You appear to have a very different idea of "best analytics tool" than I do. What is your ranking rubric?

estaseuropano 5y ago

For whom and what purpose is it the best? There are many niche systems that fit specific purposes. Sure GA can benefit from scale and existing profiles with user data gatherer in other context, which a self-hosted solution would not have acces to. But does it address every need better than specific systems? And is the added benefit worth sacrificing your users' data to google?

14 5y ago

You see it as weakening others will see it as strengthening.