What happened to Google Analytics November 9th 2012?
This past Friday, China decided to block all of Google. This included Google Analytics. That meant any users visiting your site would not be recorded by your Google Analytics install.
Google Analytics is blocked more than you think.
For most webmasters, while annoying, this is fine as China might not represent a large portion of traffic. Nevertheless, for international sites or brands, the loss of this data can be huge. Honestly, I did not realize until this week how much Google Analytics is blocked. According to GreatFire.org , a website that tracks the blocking of sites in China, Google Analytics website is restricted 11% of the time and blocked 22% in the last 30 days.
What can I do if I only use Google Analytics?
The reality is Google Analytics is a powerful tool. I am not suggesting you remove it, but you need to consider alternatives. Two really come to my mind that are low cost. The criteria for me is the likeliness of them being blocked in the future, and the low cost. One is Baidu Analytics, the other is Piwik Analytics. Let’s review them both.
Baidu Analytics
Baidu Analytics is a real solid choice. It has come a long way to being a great alternative to Google Analytics in many ways. There are some issues with using Baidu. The first issue, you will face is if you do not read Chinese. If you can’t read Chinese you will not really be able to use Baidu Analytics. Sure you can use Google Translate, but it is a clunky solution. There is also the fact that Baidu is focused only on China traffic, so this means only China traffic is recorded clearly. Other country traffic is placed as “Other”. A really great overview of Baidu Analytics in English is available here. I highly recommend you read their overview.
Piwik Analytics
Being a member of the Piwik team, makes me biased (just a tad) but truthfully I think Piwik is the best solution. One of things Piwik has going for it, is that it is self-hosted. So if you site is blocked in China your tracker will be blocked, but if not, it should track just fine. Another benefit of self-hosting is that the data stays on your server. Piwik data is where you are hosted. Piwik is also available in Chinese (traditional and simplified) as well as in English. You track unlimited number of websites, and you modify/customize the data as much as you like. One thing people forget with Piwik is they have the flexibility with their data. Just because a “feature” is not available in the backend GUI, does not mean it is possible. For example you can add segmentation to Piwik data. In the future, there is a plan to add these to the GUI.
A word on Accuracy
On the East West Connect blog, we got into a discussion of accuracy in the comments. I wanted to share my philosophy in the context of accuracy and analytics. The idea of accuracy is difficult as each tool can track differently or has different requirements. The problem for Google Analytics is data can be blocked at any time without warning by non-democratic countries. This does not even take into account the other issues a tracker can face. Some trackers to perform well, need to be ahead of other trackers. What if both have this requirement? The purpose of this requirement is the top one will fire first before a user could potentially leave and not fire the other trackers. Even ignoring this suggestion, means nothing. There is a laundry list of issues that can impact tracking. For example users can: disable cookies or javascripts, they can enable do not track in their browser, they can work at a company who by default blocks all/some trackers or they may use Adblock/Ghostery or another plugin that blocks all or just some trackers. In short, you can never find out which tool gives the best/most accurate data. The goal should be to choose the tool you like the best and at the same time provides you with the best chance to get the data you want to. Once you have data, use the insights and trends, rather then get hung up on the exact numbers.
So what should I choose?
Of course I am biased to believe Piwik gives you the best chance–based solely on the fact most people are looking to block Google, or other web-based trackers. Piwik offers the best solution by being site specific. Even if you decided to use Google or anther tracker, I personally recommend where possible to use Piwik as your second tracker, as a failsafe and sanity check. Remember, though, it’s not about numbers, but the trends the data is telling you.
Google Analytics and China [Opinion] is a post from: StatStory
