Why I Decided to Remove Google Analytics from My Blog

For a long time, I relied on Google Analytics to track the analytics of my blog. While it served its purpose, I never really loved using it. It was bloated and had a plethora of features that I never utilized. However, being a free solution, I stuck with it.

Recently, I made the decision to remove Google Analytics from my blog. The main reason behind this choice is the fact that Google will be discontinuing the Universal Analytics format, which I had been using, and replacing it with the new “Google Analytics 4”. What’s more, there is no simple one-click or automatic migration process for transferring old data to the new format.

This situation compelled me to take action and search for an alternative solution. I experimented with various options, but I had two main criteria in mind: I didn’t want to self-host anything, and I didn’t want to pay for a service.

Since my blog generates a modest amount of pageviews, hosting my own analytics solution would be impractical. Spending a significant amount of money each year solely to track the number of clicks my site receives is simply not justifiable. Besides, I have come to realize that analytics, while interesting at first, are not a crucial aspect of my blogging experience. My focus lies in ensuring that my website functions effectively, rather than obsessing over how many people visit it.

In the beginning, it was thrilling to see people visit my site, observing spikes in traffic and analyzing where the visitors came from. However, as my blog grew and gained hundreds of thousands of visitors every month, keeping track of precise numbers became less significant. At this point, I believe it’s safe to assume that my site receives a substantial amount of traffic. The difference between, for instance, 5,000 and 20,000 visitors a day is negligible in the grand scheme of things.

That said, I decided against completely removing analytics from my blog. I realized that down the road, this data could prove valuable to reflect on. As an alternative, I opted for a self-hosted version of Plausible Analytics. While it is a fantastic tool, the price didn’t align with the number of views my blog receives, considering the other sites I maintain. To show my gratitude for their open-source product and user-friendly setup, I paid for a year of their hosted plan.

Tags: Google Analytics, blog analytics, Plausible Analytics, website metrics, self-hosted analytics