Setastart WebLab Article
The benefits of NOT including Google Analytics on web pages
Abstract:
Google Analytics doesn't count a significant portion of visitors, requires cookie consent, slows down websites, and is being tested for legality.
Table of Contents:
- What is Google Analytics?
- And how does it work?
- Disadvantages of Google Analytics
- Google Analytics requires the prior consent of people to be able to count them.
- Google Analytics does not count an important part of the people who visit its pages
- Google Analytics makes pages slower
- Conclusion
- Alternatives to Google Analytics
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a software that counts the statistics of the visitors of the web pages by means of tracking the visitors.
And how does it work?
Google Analytics is JavaScript code that people who run websites include on their pages.
This JavaScript code comes from Google servers and is executed by the browsers of the people who visit these pages.
When a page with Google Analytics is visited, that page sends data about the person visiting it to Google servers, which processes it and displays it to the administrators in the form of statistics.
Google Analytics uses Third Party Cookies to track people who visit web pages.
Read Google's privacy policy to find out what data is transmitted and how it is handled.
Disadvantages of Google Analytics
Google Analytics requires the prior consent of people to be able to count them.
According to the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union, when using third party code and sending data to third parties (in this case Google), Google Analytics requires a clear prior consent of the people who visit the pages before being able to transmit the statistics to Google servers.
If people do not agree or refuse to consent, Google Analytics cannot count these statistics.
Google Analytics does not count an important part of the people who visit its pages
Ad and content blockers (adblock) that are available for web browsers prevent Google Analytics from working.
Google Analytics makes pages slower
Because it has to load and execute code on each visit and send visitor interaction data to Google's servers.
Conclusion
By excluding a significant portion of the people who visit your pages, Google Analytics can give you an incomplete and often misleading picture of your audience.
It also requires adding a "cookie consent" to your pages which worsens your user experience (UX) and your brand image.
Alternatives to Google Analytics
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are tools that provide you with statistics about your website's ranking in Google and Microsoft Bing search results, respectively, and do not require JavaScript code or cookie consent.