Ask HN: Does removing Google Analytics penalise a website in Google search? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does removing Google Analytics penalise a website in Google search?

I have a website which does well in Google results. I've been using anonimised Google Analytics but recently thought about removing even that, as what little I'm interested in can be gathered from server logs.

But I’m worried doing so will penalise the website in Google results.

My searches led me to direct answers from Google staff that no, they don’t take Google Analytics into account in rankings[1]. However, those answers are a decade old, from a time Google still touted “don’t be evil” as a motto. The Google of 2022 is one I don‘t expect to keep promises from 2010.

Are there reliable and/or recent sources which elucidate the case either way? Anecdotal reports can also be helpful.

[1]: https://plausible.io/blog/google-analytics-seo

View on HN

No, I don't see any reason to think that. If anything, it will improve your Page Speed Insights score, which will improve your rankings.

Google collects all they need and more from users using Chrome. They don't need GA anymore, and I'm pretty sure they said a while ago they were going to stop looking at the data (again, because they collect far more data from user using Chrome).

Good on you!

If you are using GA code that is at all recent, it should have no impact on the page speed as it loads async. All the parts of the page that Google cares about will already have rendered by this point.

PSI still says you should be using cacheable assets, and the gtag script has no cache-control header. Will users notice? No, but it might play into your score, which does play into your rankings.

I've still gotten a perfect score on PSI with GA enabled, but it is one piece of the puzzle.

The score from the page speed tool does not play into your rankings, only the real-world speed statistics from core web vitals. In the real-world it isn't going to make any difference.

This is less than a decade old: https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1389322980547833856

John Mueller is a Search Advocate at Google and has weekly-ish Youtube office hours where you can ask in greater detail, if you'd like.

> This is less than a decade old: https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1389322980547833856

Those are different matters. OP is asking if SERP is damaged if GA is removed, the status you shared refers to the question if pagespeed is penalised if GA is absent/present.

> John Mueller is a Search Advocate at Google

This alone makes his statements regarding Google heavily biased. I'd prefer to see independent (i.e. whose salary doesn't rely to what they say) researchers to talk about it

John Mueller makes a lot of remarks that are 'off the cuff' and contradicts himself to the point that I don't him seriously.

It seems to me that Google could get into legal trouble if that was the case.

That is barely related to the question.

Doing so would be a textbook abuse of dominance, and would not fly to any antitrust regulator — I don't think they would try to implement that.

They will easily do that if they know they won't be caught. Google has a history of similar cases so it's not something their management wouldnt consider for sure

Has Google ever faced any sort of real regulatory hurdle beyond a wristslap? It seems like they mostly operate above the law.

I do. They've done similar things in the past and are still doing them today. Big Tech constantly tests out what society will let them get away with and it turns out that it's a lot.

There is no connection between GA and search ranking.

Example - Wikipedia, Facebook, Apple and many more. They didn't have GA.

This doesn't really prove anything; there's many weights that go into page rank that will overpower a hypothetical weight for GA, especially for popular sites like these.

Well i've read a similar report to what you're attaching from another privacy focused analytics.

https://usefathom.com/blog/google-analytics-seo

They argue that it's better (?) because your website will be faster.

"This is because Fathom’s tracking code is super-lightweight and blazingly-fast to load. Our tracker file is tiny whilst Google Analytics’ file is much larger. This is a little funny, because Google’s search engine rewards faster sites, so a case could be made that using Fathom instead of Google for your analytics could potentially increase your page rank in their own search engine!"

I try to remove GA as often as I can, and I've never noticed a drop in SEO for a site after removing it. I don't personally think GA is nearly as invasive as many people do, but it's still a nice thing to do for your users.

I know of many people who believe Google Analytics to be unnecessary & poor quality. Many would argue you can get just as good, if not better info from just using Google Search Console. None of these sources I've heard from have been concerned with a penalty. I unfortunately don't have citations for you.

A counter argument would be if you use Google Analytics for more advanced tracking of user features, such as A/B testing & tracking how users interact with your site.

The only people who really know are not saying anything. If your site is doing OK than any change is going to be a risk.

Still no.

No.

Thats not how search engine optimisation works. Neither in theory nor in the real world.

And I removed it from a lot of client websites. Just do it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com