Hide Referrers? and Why I Hate Google Analytics

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:11:19 GMT

http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/390320.html?style=mine

Suggestion on hiding referrers. I think that some form of this should be done, for privacy's sake. And that it should be opt-in. Other than that, the technical concerns are very complex, so I don't have much else to say.

In the course of discussing that suggestion, I mentioned that I hate using Google Analytics, although this is a result of my very specific needs. I'm sure that Google Analytics is great for analyzing e-commerce and professional usages, but I use it for one reason: because I want to see if anyone is linking to my posts. Now, Google Analytics is capable of doing this, but in a very inefficient way. Possibly, there's a way to make it do it more efficiently, but I don't know how to make it output that data, and GA is so complex that it's not intuitive to do so; which is not necessarily a flaw, but more of a sign that it's not suited to the avg noob.
( my peeves )

comments

Random notes

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:03:57 GMT

1. I'm using google analytics on one of my other sites and whoa... I have to say it's really professional, BUT this makes it darn confusing to the average user who isn't attempting to run a full fledged internet business. I don't understand half of the things going on in here. But the worst thing is, they don't have full URL referral out of the box! >:O You have to go through all of these shenanigans in order to do it.

Statcounter I find much easier to use. It's also much less powerful, but it gets me what I want (referrers).

2. http://adders.dreamwidth.org/605.html

I hope they do adopt measures to prettify DW. I was using Tumblr, and despite the fact that in some ways it is less powerful than LJ (no native commenting, no granular privacy), it does have a really nice interface that I find fairly intuitive. It's all about the rounded corners, maybe. XD

comments

Charmian's Journal

Hide Referrers? and Why I Hate Google Analytics

Random notes