Dont Use Google Analytics Or Webmaster Tools?

[mdsurf]

hello everyone,

ive read more than once on this forum and others to not use google analytics or webmaster tools, but im wondering why. people say it allows google to track you more etc but is there actually a case study on this or some real insight as to why this might be.

wouldn't they have information about all your links etc even if you weren't using these tools?

thanks

 

[SuperLinks]

Its not about having access to links or information like that. Its about putting all your eggs in a single, and unnecessary basket.

If you spent years building up websites that finally received top rankings, would you want to jeopardize all of those accounts by installing Analytics or activating Webmaster Tools? For some of us, that equates to $xx,xxx/mo. or more!

Some don't play by Google's ever ambiguous terms of service and we want to reduce the possibility that all of our websites could lose all of the rankings at the same time. By activating Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools you run the risk of having all of your sites removed in a single blow if you don't play by the rules.

 

[christoss1959]

I think a lot of people suspect that it allows the big G to know that you have multiple sites and if it think one of your sites is spam then it will suspect your others sites also to be spam (or something of the sort).
I am using it for my sites without any problems, but I only have 5 my own and I include the analytics and webmaster tools of my clients to their personal accounts. I would suspect if you have tons of domains to seperate them and not include all of them in one account

 

[Autumn]

It's a no brainer - if you're making your money from search engines, don't use ANY Google products. That includes gmail! We know for a fact that they're reading your mail, storing it indefinitely, and that they correlate different accounts of the same user.

 

[bobbylove321]

hello everyone,

ive read more than once on this forum and others to not use google analytics or webmaster tools, but im wondering why. people say it allows google to track you more etc but is there actually a case study on this or some real insight as to why this might be.

wouldn't they have information about all your links etc even if you weren't using these tools?

thanks

A lot of what is said about webmaster tools and analytics are theories.

I had one of the top ranking music websites in the world outranking MTV, VH1, and BET in google for keywords like hip hop songs, hip hop music, hip hop, etc.

And I was using analytics and webmaster tools.

If you are going to be doing blackhat on page seo, then you can avoid those tools if you think they may bring down your site in some shape or form.

However, if your only doing "blackhat" off page seo (link building), then you should be fine using those 2 services.

 

[eternalfrost]

the only real way to keep google from penalizing you is to add

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

to a robots.txt


but seriously, thanks for your input SuperLinks, thats the first explanation ive heard that is even half way reasonable. but as autumn says too, if you believe this it means you basically cant ever use any service by google...

 

[mdsurf]

thank you everyone for your responses but i don't think i was completely clear on what i was asking.

i think a better way to phrase it is "by having google analytics or webmaster tools, how does google use this information to penalize your site".

what im getting from the responses is that the only risk by have these tools is if you have multiple websites on them, thus they would be linked together and if one site gets in trouble then they all will.

but does just having these tools on one websitehave any inherent risks, assuming no onsite blackhat?

 

[phpbuilt]

i think a better way to phrase it is "by having google analytics or webmaster tools, how does google use this information to penalize your site".

1) Google relates your website to other websites you own, penalizing your site by knowing your sites are related (if they interlink), and if it decides to penalize one of your websites for some reason, any other connected website you have may also be scrutinized simply for being connected within Google analytics.

2) They will know your exact bounce rate -- if you have a high bounce rate this could adversely affect your rankings.

3) Google knows whether 100% of your traffic comes from them, or whether you are extremely popular getting traffic from many sources. The theory is if you get tons of traffic from other sources, Google will take your site more seriously. If you don't have any traffic at all besides what Google gives to you, then Google knows you're only successful because of them, and them alone -- which could devalue your worth to them.

All these are just speculative, but they are reasons why someone might want to be weary about whether or not to let Google have access to your traffic information.

 

[88bizzuke88]

bs**t period.

 

[eternalfrost]

in that case, analytics has the possibility if giving google more info it wouldnt have otherwise since it is an extra module you have to insert into your server-side workings. and this could possibly lead to some negative results.

i have never seen any sort of actual proof, or even suggestion that this would be true though...

webmaster tools just lets you access the 'public' info google already collects on you (and every other site).

 

[WildDisease]

I find I've been more cushioned against bans by networking my Google services (compared to those that regularly complain about being banned for similar activities).. I think they trust me more having synchronized access to their apps..?

On one hand it gives them 'more information' but between Adsense/Googlebot, they have all the information they want regardless of WT or Analytics being present.

 

[Autumn]

1) Google relates your website to other websites you own, penalizing your site by knowing your sites are related (if they interlink), and if it decides to penalize one of your websites for some reason, any other connected website you have may also be scrutinized simply for being connected within Google analytics.

2) They will know your exact bounce rate -- if you have a high bounce rate this could adversely affect your rankings.

3) Google knows whether 100% of your traffic comes from them, or whether you are extremely popular getting traffic from many sources. The theory is if you get tons of traffic from other sources, Google will take your site more seriously. If you don't have any traffic at all besides what Google gives to you, then Google knows you're only successful because of them, and them alone -- which could devalue your worth to them.

All these are just speculative, but they are reasons why someone might want to be weary about whether or not to let Google have access to your traffic information.

That is exactly true and you people who don't think that giving the Google-borg access to your sites can't have a negative impact need to stop drinking the Google kool aid. This is a total war that we're in, and Google is the enemy.

 

[Monrox]

...
On one hand it gives them 'more information' but between Adsense/Googlebot, they have all the information they want regardless of WT or Analytics being present.

Not necessarily. They didn't spend billions to get urchin (analytics) just so they can show webmasters pretty pie charts for free. People look for proof and case studies but using common sense draws a clear enough picture: if I am making money from voyeuristic pornography and am somehow able to make people use transparent walls for their houses... would I use it to make more money or would I let all this cash slip away because of my motto 'don't do evil'?

Same with making money by tracking people online. Analytics is not that useful btw since it witholds so much, IPs being the biggest issue. For example, you may be getting thousands of student visitors but you'll never know that when you don't see they are all campus IPs. So you'd be missing some serious $$$s by not promoting college stuff. G will know it however and things could go like this: if you have AS, they start showing college offers. If you don't have AS, they drop you and put some website that has AS. So in the end you may or may not be earning but they are earning in both cases.

To add some practical value to the discussion: complete visitor stats are found in the server logs that the host keeps for us free of charge. There are many, MANY programs that can present that information neatly formatted. Also there are programs that can do the same as analytics like cookies, javascript and all but only you get to keep (and monetize) the info. Not all are free but who really cares anyway.

 

[mdsurf]

you mentioned that there are good alternative to analytics, paid and unpaid what tools are out there, i looked into getclicky but it just seemed okay.

 

[Monrox]

Uh before I started using custom stuff I was with clicktracks. Also statcounter is often mentioned here and it looks like it's free.

 

[Orbify]

Doesn't google know all the analytical stuff by default? The one you'd get with webmater tools/analytics.

 

[ultimategamechain]

if your doing some blackhat things then dont use them.

 

[judson]

My primary reason for using my analytics software, is just so I *own* and *control* the data. Open Web Analytics and Piwik are two free ones you can install on your own servers.

Google already collates a helluva lot of data on you. If you use any of their products, like Adsense et al, they already know what sites you own/run. They probably already know more about your visitors too, since most people will be signed into Gmail as they surf the web.

If you think Google cannot link your accounts, then google the Google employee who was fired for doing just that, to impress a girl.

Also, it need not be either or. You can run your own solution along with Google Analytics. Figure out which one works better for you.

 

[neo3187]

analytics + adsense = SITE DEAD

I decided to launch a genuine site in a comptt niche, eventhough the niche was tough 2 crack, my keyword research was pretty strong and without much efforts i was ranking in top 5 and top 3 for most of my keywords.

I had ordered unique articles from a seller here at BHW. I was using adsense and analytics on that site, the traffic was growing nicely and one day BAM the site got deindexed.. I was shocked.

OK I just bought a new domain and relaunched the same site but with only 1 adsense unit and no analytics... site got deindexed again.

Now I did the same thing but with No adsense, No Analytics, No Webmasters and monetizing through Infolinks. Infolinks is giving be 15-20% of CTR and $4-5 a day, the site is sailing smoothly now (atleast till now) , I have my fingers crossed.

 

[DamageX]

*shakes head*