Google Analytics - Yes or No

[ukbf0001]

What are you thoughts - keep using Google Analytics or drop it ?

I'm in 2 minds - and partly suspicious of how Google uses the data.
Analytics is fine for seeing , locations, bounce rates etc BUT Im suspicious Google will look at bounce rate and various other metrics and factor that into the SERPs ( Search Engine Results Page) especially as the right hand side Ads are no more - and they have added 4 Ads at the top and 3 at the bottom of each page.

As anyone done any experiment or anecdotal experience or just decided to keep or drop google analytics ? - Id appreciate your feedback

 

[SEOpie]

In all likelihood, Google already has this data, whether you’re viewing it or not.

GA should never be relied upon for exact data- it should only be used to identify trends. There are other software out there which are supposed to offer a better solution, but I’ve found the combination of Search Console and GA to be enough.

 

[fisicx]

I use clicky.com. Analytics are far superior to GA. Piwik is also very good but not as simple to set up. Either of these with give you far more granularity than GA.

 

[bijutoha]

This is one of my regular duty to use GA. I have a favor for it. Because it makes me clear to judge and fresh my work. it allows me to measure my results efficiently.

 

[StevePoster]

Study and learn experience from GA for you to understand your visitors behavior within your website but the data provided is not complete for this you need to upgrade to premium to maximize the usage. Piwik i consider one of the best because it almost provided the complete data from your site but still you need a developer to customize the fields in Piwik.

 

[andygambles]

I find GA helps me identify trends, especially with Ecommerce reporting.

Clicky provides much more in depth reporting and visitor behaviour which we use more to help define website journeys and optimisations.

 

[Paul Carmen]

The quality of GA is all about the setup; e.g. event tracking, conversion tracking etc, it also passes data to other tools like Googl Search Console & AdWords. Some alternatives suggested are easier to use out of the box & may offer more for less work.

To associate this with your SERPs rankings is not relevant, Google base all this information on crawls by their bot (content, search term relevance, backlinks, mobile friendliness etc.). Time on site & the actual behaviour of customers is taken from Google Search, so does that customer go to your site & spend a long time on the page (good) or do they go to your site, find the contnet is not relevant & click back to Google search to look at another result (bad). Taking GA off wont impact your rankings.

 

[alexdigital]

GA Is fine. I don't think it will impact your rankings.

And anyway, you should use the data to improve your bounce rate, page speed etc. So if it does have an affect, it won't matter. In fact, it will be of benefit..

 

[makeusvisible]

Google Analytics gives you a lot of integration capability you would struggle to find with other platforms.....specifically with Google Adwords. Customer audience, goal definitions and e-commerce all integrate seamlessly with the Adwords platform.....because it all comes under the same umbrella. Obviously, if you don't plan to use these, then it opens your options.

In terms of Google using the data against you, that argument probably goes both ways; they could be using the data in your favour too.

We find Analytics to be a superb platform when it comes to conversion optimisation....but we do use it in conjunction with other tools such as screen recording software and heat map software.

 

[justinaldridge]

Really surprised at some of the comments here against GA. It is an excellent platform with huge amounts of data and I'd be surprised if anyone commenting negatively here about it has even used 10% of its actual capabilities.

The only problem with GA is that to truly master it you have to know how to extract the data. The basic reports are just the beginning, there is so much more to it than that.

In response to the original question from the OP, no, GA is unlikely to impact your rankings in any way. It's definitely not something you need to worry about.

 

[fisicx]

I'm not against GA. It's just that I get far better reporting from both Clicky and Piwik

 

[Tech4UK]

GA Is fine. I don't think it will impact your rankings.

And anyway, you should use the data to improve your bounce rate, page speed etc. So if it does have an affect, it won't matter. In fact, it will be of benefit..

Exactly You are right Alex... GA does not affect. It will be a benefit only....

 

[SEOLiam]

@Paul Carmen has the best answer here, it's all about how best you utilise the tools available in Google Analytics.

 

[Alan]

I tend to run GA and Piwik, I mainly use GA just because of the integration to Adwords for conversion tracking. Personally I find it just quicker and easier to get what I want from Piwik so tend to login there more often. Sure GA is comprehensive, and if you take the time to learn everything it can do and add all the filters to get rid of referrer spam etc then it does the job.

 

[SEOLiam]

I agree @Alan ... In the past I've used Google Analytics for client websites and for my own website I use a combination of GA and Vanilla JavaScript to track events and visitors.

I also recommend other tracking tools like Sumome, they have the heatmap tracking software so you can see userflow and drop off points, you can do the same with GA but sumo is a bit more visual.

 

[websensejim]

Google doesn't use Analytics data for any of its ranking signals. Some of the GA metrics you mentioned (like bounce rate) are so noisy and unreliable, they would tell Google nothing about the user's search experience. They have more than enough user data already to provide the inputs they need.

 

[sammyk]

Yes I am for GA. I alway use it in line with statcounter with also tracks visitors in realtime. If you plan on using adwords PPC as well you can build audiences in GA to tarrget for remarketing so there are amny benefits.

 

[dariadavis]

I think there is nothing to worry about. Try using other tools like Mixpanel in addition, for instance.

 

[Bella Rose]

I use GA for the trends but you can use other tools as well like piwik because it gives you detailed data . Try that also

 

[josephkelly]

Google Analytics is a good way of analyzing whether our website is performing well or not.It tells us about the visitors report.If someone's giving a fresh start with local SEO then google analytic tool will be of great help to analyze the traffic.

 

[WhizzPeople]

Where you use GA or not, Google will get the data from the browser, mobile users location, Google search, Android, Firefox, etc.

 

[Killua7]

Yes, I approciate the GA