Category: Google Analytics

Privacy-Friendly Alternatives to Google Analytics: Protecting User Data without Sacrificing Insights

Introduction

In today’s digital age, website owners and businesses rely on analytics tools to gain valuable insights into user behavior and optimize their online presence. However, as concerns about data privacy grow, the use of traditional analytics platforms like Google Analytics has raised questions about the collection and handling of user data. Privacy-conscious website owners are seeking alternatives that prioritize data protection without compromising on the ability to understand their audience. In this article, we explore five privacy-friendly alternatives to Google Analytics that offer comprehensive analytics while respecting user privacy.

Privacy-friendly GA Alternatives

1. Visitor Analytics

Visitor-analytics.io is a privacy-focused analytics tool that provides insightful data without tracking personal information. It is fully compliant with GDPR and respects users’ Do Not Track (DNT) preferences. The platform offers essential metrics like page views, visitor demographics, and referral sources, all while anonymizing user IPs for enhanced privacy. With Visitor Analytics, you gain valuable insights into your website’s performance without invading your visitors’ privacy.

2. Plausible.io

Plausible GA Alternative


Plausible.io (https://plausible.io) is a lightweight and open-source analytics solution designed to prioritize user privacy. The tool offers a simple, easy-to-understand dashboard that presents key metrics without collecting any personal data. Plausible.io complies with GDPR, and its script is just a fraction of the size of traditional analytics tools, reducing the impact on page load times. By opting for Plausible.io, you can track the essential metrics while showing respect for your visitors’ privacy choices.

3. Simple Analytics

True to its name, Simple Analytics (https://simpleanalytics.com) provides a straightforward and privacy-friendly analytics platform. It values transparency, as its website clearly states what data is collected and what is not. Simple Analytics omits the use of cookies and does not track personal information, ensuring user privacy is maintained. The tool focuses on presenting critical data such as pageviews, referrers, and top pages, making it a privacy-conscious choice for website owners.

4. Matomo

Matomo (https://matomo.org) is an open-source analytics platform that offers self-hosting capabilities, providing users with complete control over their data. Formerly known as Piwik, Matomo allows you to deploy the analytics script on your own servers, giving you the power to manage data and maintain user privacy. The platform adheres to privacy regulations like GDPR and provides in-depth analytics, heatmaps, and user journey analysis while ensuring data remains secure and private.

5. Piwik Pro

Piwik Pro (https://piwik.pro) is the enterprise version of Matomo, catering to businesses with more extensive analytics needs. It offers the same privacy-focused features as Matomo but also provides additional security features and support. Piwik Pro allows users to host the analytics infrastructure on-premises, offering even greater control over user data. It is a suitable choice for organizations that prioritize data privacy and require more advanced analytics capabilities.

Disclaimer: in some cases you should still display a cookie bar, consent and/or a statement in your privacy policy and/or you still might setup the above alternatives with specific setting to make them GDPR / CCPA friendly

Conclusion

In an era where data privacy is paramount, website owners need not compromise on valuable insights. Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google Analytics offer a range of options that prioritize data protection while still delivering essential analytics data. Whether you choose Visitor Analytics, Plausible.io, Simple Analytics, Matomo, or Piwik Pro, you can rest assured that your users’ privacy remains intact.

By embracing these privacy-conscious solutions, website owners demonstrate their commitment to respecting user choices and safeguarding sensitive data. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, these alternatives showcase the possibility of balancing data insights with ethical data practices. Ultimately, it is a win-win situation, benefiting website owners with actionable data while providing visitors with a more secure and privacy-respecting online experience.

Missing Traffic When Migrating to Google Analytics 4 (GA4): Understanding and Solving CSP Blacklisting Issues

Introduction

Migrating to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a crucial step for businesses to stay up-to-date with the latest analytics capabilities and make more informed decisions based on user data. GA4, as the next generation of analytics from Google, automatically utilizes your existing Universal Analytics data to offer a seamless transition. However, during migration, you may encounter an issue where some traffic seems to be missing from your GA4 reports. One of the primary reasons behind this can be Content Security Policy (CSP) blacklisting. In this blog, we will delve into what CSP blacklisting is, how it affects your Google Analytics data, and how to resolve this problem to ensure a smooth migration.

Understanding CSP Blacklisting

Content Security Policy (CSP) is an added layer of security that helps prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on web applications. It enables web developers to specify which sources of content are considered trusted and should be loaded and executed on their websites. CSP provides a way to restrict the types of resources that can be loaded, such as scripts, images, and other content, to mitigate security risks.

When CSP is enabled on your website, the browser follows the policy’s rules to determine whether to load and execute resources from specified domains. If a domain is not listed in the CSP configuration, the browser may refuse to connect to it, resulting in blacklisting.

Impact on GA4 Migration

During the process of migrating to GA4, your website might still be using the previous Universal Analytics tracking code or legacy scripts. GA4 automatically attempts to leverage this older data to ensure a smooth transition. However, due to CSP blacklisting, the data collected by Universal Analytics might not be transferred successfully to GA4. This leads to discrepancies in your GA4 reports, and certain traffic data may appear to be missing.

Identifying CSP Blacklisting

To identify if CSP blacklisting is causing the issue, follow these steps:

  1. Go to your website.
  2. Open the developer tools of your web browser (commonly accessed using the F12 key).
  3. Look for error messages indicating that the browser has refused to connect to specific domains related to GA4. The error message may resemble: “Refused to connect to https://region1.google-analytics.com.”

If you encounter such error messages, it is highly likely that CSP blacklisting is affecting the migration of data to GA4.

Resolving CSP Blacklisting for GA4

To ensure a successful migration and eliminate missing traffic in GA4, you need to adjust your Content Security Policy configuration. This can typically be done in your web server’s configuration file, such as .htaccess or nginx, or directly in your website’s source code.

Here’s an example of how to update your .htaccess file to resolve CSP blacklisting for GA4:

apacheconfCopy code<IfModule mod_headers.c> Header set Content-Security-Policy "script-src https://*.googletagmanager.com; img-src https://*.google-analytics.com https://*.googletagmanager.com; connect-src https://*.google-analytics.com https://*.analytics.google.com https://*.googletagmanager.com;" </IfModule>

This example adds the necessary domains for scripts, images, and connections related to GA4 to your CSP configuration.

For other web servers like nginx, you can adapt the same CSP configuration principles to the appropriate configuration syntax.

Privacy Friendly Alternatives

Now might be a time to consider switching to a privacy-friendly alternative for Google Analytics. There are many interesting alternatives available, like Visitor Analytics.

Final Thoughts

Migrating to Google Analytics 4 brings new opportunities for understanding user behavior and making data-driven decisions. However, missing traffic during the migration process can be frustrating. By identifying and resolving CSP blacklisting issues, you can ensure that your GA4 reports accurately reflect all relevant data. Always keep your web applications secure with the right Content Security Policy, striking a balance between enhanced security and seamless data migration.

Remember to test your website thoroughly after updating the CSP configuration to confirm that data is being collected correctly in GA4. Regularly monitoring your analytics reports and staying updated with best practices will help you make the most of GA4’s advanced capabilities while providing a better experience for your website visitors.

Google Analytics Measurement Protocol Sales / Leads show (not set)

The reason why this happens is shown here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38141269/google-analytics-e-commerce-with-measurement-protocol-not-set-landing-page .

Basically, this happens because when pushing a lead or sale via the Measurement Protocol and that happend 30+ minutes after the session. This happens because Google Analytics session has a default max 30 minutes duration.

Another reason could be due to inconsistent tracking codes.

Several solutions are written in this blog: https://www.idimension.com/2017/12/landing-page-not-set-why/

How to fix the Google Analytics gtag.js Low or 0% Bounce Rate

When using the new Google Analytics gtag.js and sending custom dimensions or metrics as events you can see a 0% or very low bounce rate. Something like:

Low bounce rate Google Analytics

That might look unusual low, so in most cases it’s a bug. In my case it was caused by sending a local_dimension or metric:

gtag('event', 'x_dimension', {'x123': 'variabletext', 'y456' : 'variabletext'});

It’s caused by not adding non_interaction mode in this event:

{'non_interaction': true}

So in total it becomes:

gtag('event', 'x_dimension', {'x123': 'variabletext', 'y456' : 'variabletext', 'non_interaction': true});

Hopefully this fixes it for you as well. More info on the GA Docs.

Lijst van Nederlandse PSP’s om uit te sluiten in Google Analytics voor iDeal, Mollie en PayPal

Wanneer je in Google Analytics E-commercetracking, dus tracking van sales bijhoudt, valt het je misschien op dat je veel referral verkeer krijgt als veroorzaker van de sale. Als je dat opzoekt zie je dan adressen als: ideal.ing.nl en mollie.com . Dat zijn niet de adressen waar de bezoekers begonnen. Toch worden ze als referral bron geregistreerd.

Hoe voorkom je dit? Dit artikel legt het goed uit. Alleen is de lijst met referrals achterhaald. Wij hebben hem geüpdatet met de meeste Nederlandse banken en  Payment Service Providers (PSP’s) zoals PayPal en Mollie:

Lijst met Nederlandse PSP’s en iDeal + Mister Cash Banken

  • ideal.vanlanschot.com
  • multisafepay.com
  • mollie.com
  • ideal.ing.nl
  • bankieren.ideal.ing.nl
  • betalen.rabobank.nl
  • abnamro.nl
  • ideal.asnbank.nl
  • ideal.snsbank.nl
  • ideal.triodos.nl
  • securecode.abnamro.nl
  • pay.multisafepay.com
  • paypal.com
  • pay.mollie.nl
  • pay.mollie.com
  • ideal.knab.nl
  • diensten.asnbank.nl
  • bancontact.girogate.be
  • ideal.bunq.com
  • pay.multisafepay.com
  • secure.curopayments.net
  • pay.nl
  • payment-web.sips-atos.com
  • secure.ogone.com
  • ideal.regiobank.nl

Je voegt deze lijst in Google Analytics per entry toe bij Admin > Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List.

Ontbreekt er nog een bank?

Bekijk regelmatig je referral verkeer. Als je dan dingen ziet zoals bijv. ideal.JOUWBANK.nl voeg je hem toe aan je referral exclusion list. En laat het gerust in de comments weten!