Why Google analytics sucks?

google analytics photo

I had a conversation with a possible client recently about Google analytics, and when I suggested to him to use statcounter instead of Google analytics, he asked me to explain further.

So, I explained to him that we don’t use Google Analytics. Instead, we use Statcounter because it gives us usable and actionable data. Google Analytics is a confusing mess as a tool. I’m sure it works well in the board meetings though!

Other than that, it is useless.

Statcounter and Google analytics show the same numbers of visitors in a given time period, beside other options that enables you to gather data of the traffic on your site. You trust both of them regarding the numbers of visitors in a given time period.

google analytics photo

Google analytics presents the data in a way that you don’t find helpful, it’s too much clicking to get to the useful data and by the time you have gotten to the useful stuff, you have completely lost your way. Google analytics used to be good until they have changed the interface into what they are currently offering.

For us as SEO company, we need to have the overview and the details at the same time, so we don’t get lost. What we are working with is complicated enough, the statistical tool shouldn’t make it worse.

Google have done it like this to present nice Graphs, but we have no interest whether the data looks nice or not, we are interested in what we learn from it.

Statcounter has much simpler and cleaner interface, so analyzing what you are seeing, is much easier.

Both tools are free to use.

Get Google Analytics
Get Statcounter

What is your opinion?

Leave your comments below.

Last Updated on May 24, 2022 by Bjorn Solstad

3 thoughts on “Why Google analytics sucks?”

  1. I use both but statcounter for a longer time than Googe Analytics, I find Google Analytics too complicated, too much clicking to find the good result and it has too much blowing not useful options. For me Statcounter all the way.

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  2. So glad others feel this way. Google is staffed by tech nerds who love to overcomplicate things without thinking about how most people use them. And the reality is that Google Analytics is an overcomplicated mess which is counter intuitive and inaccessible for most people. The vast majority of business owners and webmasters have very simple traffic analysis requirements and just need to be able to access the most basic data without crawling through a confusing swamp of excruciatingly obscure graphs and metrics. If Google Analytics were well designed, it would be possible for a new user to work out how to do that fairly quickly. Instead, you quickly get hopelessly lost in a maze of screens and graphs and tables and a sea of data and options that most people wouldn’t use in a million years. I’m sure the tech nerds at Google pat themselves on the back and think “job well done,” but as usual they are hopeless clueless about who the majority of users are and what their requirements are. The irony is that a company which claims to be the world leader in this sort of demographic analysis actually have no idea whatsoever of the characteristics of who uses (or tries to use) their software.

    I am a beta tester for a major piece of very well designed commercial software, and one of the first things we do when testing new features is to dive right into it blind to simulate how a newcomer might perceive it. And through the complaints and suggestions we make in the process, a wonderfully intuitive and easy to learn piece of software emerges. I’m sure Google thinks this kind of user is beneath them.

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  3. totally! Google analytics used to be so great, now it totally sucks. I don’t even use it anymore. Confusing mess is right. I use statcounter too, the Recent visitor activity is the goods..

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