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Will Automattic ever stop blocking Google Analytics?

  1. vaneeesab
    Member

    I love you guys a lot and I know you value security a lot. But with no disrespect, my #1 complaint is the "fake" stats you make us live with on .com. Yes, yes, I know "if you don't like it you can go to your own install," and perhaps I should.

    But I'm just wondering if there will ever come a day when Automattic stops blocking Google Analytics? Tumblr allows it. Blogger allows it. Again, I don't mean to seem disrespectful to Automattic, but the stats you make us live with are very anemic and, apologies, but those annual messages you send about how many times we would have filled up this or that stadium are insulting. I feel like you are so eager for us to feel satisfied with our blogs that you feed us misleading stats. One hit on your blog, that bounces in 2 seconds, is nothing like someone buying an expensive concert ticket, spending half a day on the event, and perhaps having a life changing experience.

    Why can't we see pages per visit?
    Why can't we see average time per visit?
    Why can't we see bounce rate?
    etc

    I hope my tone isn't caustic, I truly do appreciate the wonderful service you provide. But I just feel that when it comes to stats you aren't really being honest with us and you're blocking us from seeing the truth. WordPress.com is too good, and the bloggers who use it work too hard, for "fake" hits-only misleading stats.
    Blog url: http://vaneeesab.wordpress.com/

  2. raincoaster
    Member

    Well, now this has to be the best-written post about Google Analytics and WordPress.com that I've ever read. Sometimes I've felt like the requests were so inept, entitled, and screamy that if Wp.com belonged to me, I'd keep Google Analytics off just to annoy those people.

    I think one reason WP.com doesn't allow Google Analytics is, they don't want Google having all that information. Lots of blogs here are anti-government, etc, and many attempts have been made to get at them. Google famously responds to government requests for information. Of course, enabling Analytics doesn't mean installing it across all Wp.com blogs. I'm not sure, from the structure of the blogs, whether it can be done on an individual basis at all. I do know WP.com itself used to use Google Analytics and from that, they reported a subset of the results as our stats. That changed a few years ago.

  3. timethief
    Member

    @vaneeesab
    Are you aware that all wordpress.com blogs are quantified?
    http://www.quantcast.com/vaneeesab.wordpress.com

  4. raincoaster
    Member

    I'm intrigued by how much lower my Quantcast numbers are than my Wp.com numbers. As in they report I have X per month, when my WP.com stats indicate that's what I have per WEEK.

  5. timethief
    Member

    Sitemeter, Statcounter, wordpress stats, quantcast and all the others will never agree. Each one of them decides how and what they will count as a hit. Some count page views and some count unique visitors. Therefore, use any of the stats counters only as a general guide to hits.

    An application that is not running on the same servers your blog is on is going to be susceptible to wild fluctuations. This is because all hits have to be transferred over the internet to different servers, and there are literally thousands of things that can go wrong between the server your blog is on and the server at the stats place.

    Also there's the possibility that the software or hardware at the stats place may be broken and not recording, or counting things as intended.

    I'm not convinced that the GA script isn't running on our blogs here until Staff states that clearly. And, it's the case that it's running on this domain then as only only version of the script is allowed to run we individual bloggers can't run it on our blogs on sub-domains as well.

  6. raincoaster
    Member

    Trent told us that in some post in the forum a couple of years ago at least. They specifically said they had removed the analytics code.

  7. timethief
    Member

    Thanks. I missed that.

  8. vaneeesab
    Member

    Hey @timethief, IDK about Quantcast, TY!

    But when I sign up they want a piece of code in the HTML head, so aren't we just back to the same thing?

  9. raincoaster
    Member

    You don't need to sign up. Just put your URL in the box and get your stats. I believe WP.com signed us all up for it.

  10. notawoodpecker
    Member

    Sitemeter, Statcounter, wordpress stats, quantcast and all the others will never agree. Each one of them decides how and what they will count as a hit. Some count page views and some count unique visitors.

    Which is exactly why Stats are pretty much useless.

    Yet people obsess over them as if they were life and death.

  11. auxclass
    Member

    Sometimes Quantcast seems to miss a blog or two - also if you have a mapped domain you need to ask them to Quantify your blog - no need for code but in my one experience with them it took weeks and I had to keep after them every week

  12. timethief
    Member

    @vaneeesab

    But when I sign up they want a piece of code in the HTML head, so aren't we just back to the same thing?

    Staff insert the quancast code. We bloggers can't and don't.

  13. timethief
    Member

    @vaneeesab
    Sorry I clicked too soon. I contact Quancast and had both of my blogs on their own domain quantified. I provided both the domain URLs and the underlying .wordpress.com URLs and I believe it took about a week or 10 days.

    @notawoodpecker

    Which is exactly why Stats are pretty much useless.
    Yet people obsess over them as if they were life and death.

    AMEN

    My next post may be a rant on focusing on creating content and relationships and ditching the obsession with bean counting. If you are into it I accept guest posts http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/guest-posts/

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