Google Analytics, Good, Bad or Neither for rankings

[nashville]

I am wondering of using Google Analytics can be good or bad for rankings, or maybe neither.

It seems like it could be used either way?

Thanks

[MtraX]

Hi

I've seen many posts like this. I can't for one minute believe that it would be bad for you except if you're busy with black hat SEO, in which case you'd be focussing the Goog's attention on you. The functionality is great, check out my ongoing Google Analytics review. It's by far the most functionality that you would get for free. Now Google have gone and pulled the ultimate marketing ploy (even though I don't think they preemted it) and limited sign-up, which sounds like the ultimate Christmas toy sales trick. Tell everyone about your new product/service and then tell everyone that there is only a limited amount available...

I feel that it can't hurt and I've installed it on a site where I can test it without worrying about the consequences either way. It has made no impact on traffic to the site (as you would expect) either way. In fact, it will increase traffic if you know how to mine your data properly and help you understand the metrics of your userbase. That's the goal, short and sweet. Yes, you give Google permission to use your data anonymously in their research, that's the only negative, but I don't really see it as a negative since I'm not really one for conspiracy theories.

Let's make a comparison - say you get an SEO tool, that exactly indicates in a list of priority what you have to do to get the number one spot, but you're signing away some anonymous data. What would you do?

Time will tell. I think it's more good than bad...

MtraX

[nashville]

Many thanks for the reply. I am not doing any blackhat SEO.

However I do not have the GA code on every page in my site. In fact I have complete sections that I have no links to from the home page.

Like my forums, links and store that I am not promoting at the moment. I wonder if this fact is causing some problems.

So in other words according to AWSTATS my domain gets 200 visitors per day more than GA knows about.

The issue that always worries me is that something I am doing by accident is viewed as black hat or even grey hat and I am not aware of it.

[MtraX]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Try it out for a month or two and see what happens. The positives far outweighs the negatives. Having it on the forum will give you a great indication of how that section is performing. Generally forums are the biggest source of potential traffic.

MtraX

[Susmita]

What is "Google Analytic"? What is it's importance and how it can help my site to rank well. Is "Adsense" redefined as "GoogleAnalytics" ? Please explain.

[MtraX]

Hi Debjani.

Google Analytics is glorified stats for your website. It won't help your rank by just signing up and putting the code on your site. It will however help you understand your traffic better, and thus find ways to improve your website to get better rank and conversion.

Let me drop a bomb:
What's more important? Rank or conversion?!

MtraX

[incrediblehelp]

Its to bad they are not allow people to sign up anymore.

[MtraX]

It's creating a buzz (ala Aaron) which I hope they can satisfy once they do allow signups...

MtraX

[Susmita]

I think ranking and conversion both are equally important or say conversion is the subset of se rankings. Because without good ranking we can't have good amount of visitors and without the visitors we can't expect conversion. Am I right ?

[MtraX]

Yes you are right. In certain cases conversion is more important than ranking, because you can run proper PPC and then have to make sure you have good conversion to ensure ROI. All done without ranking.

[Susmita]

Well I have studied about google analytics, which can be used for overall market analysis. But what about the data privacy concern. If I will be using google anlytics it may access my important business datas for its analysis purpose but will it be harmful for me? Please explain.

[MtraX]

Hi Debjani

It depends on what kind of data you are running, but I am sure Google won't share any private data from your company.

The data they talk about in their contract is not your personal private data and site content, but rather the raw stats, which will also never be maid available to third parties, just by Google (in certain cases) for product research as far as I can gather.

Anyone else care to comment?

Regards
MtraX

[nashville]

I really doubt Google would ever violate any personal privacy issues. That would end the Google empire really fast. I trust them completely when it comes to my personal data.

My concern is when we do not or might not implement GA in a way they think we might. For example if they use the data to determine rank or which site is better. In my case I do not use GA on all URL's - the data means a great deal to me, but Google may come to the wrong conculsion about my site.

Again, I trust Google as far as personal privacy goes.

[brian.mark]

A couple of comments that were made at SES by a Google employee about analytics.

1) Google will never use Google Analytics data to increase minimum bid prices.

2) Analytics adoption is the single most important factor in increasing AdWords spend. They don't care what analytics you use, they just want to make sure you're using them. To entice people to use them, they're giving away the one that they were a customer for until they bought it.

Brian.

[google junky]

Well maybe they wouldn't let some of your info be seen intentionally.
This was interesting to read. It has to do with Sitemaps though.

http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/archive...ogle-sitemaps/

[brian.mark]

Originally Posted by google junky

Well maybe they wouldn't let some of your info be seen intentionally.
This was interesting to read. It has to do with Sitemaps though.

http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/archive...ogle-sitemaps/

Sure, it was an interesting read. Within hours of David posting that, Google had it fixed. David is really interesting to talk to, and he's constantly pushing the envelope. Nice enough guy, but very persistent in trying things until something breaks.

Analytics requires a google account, so it is a bit of a different animal.

Brian.