The 'other platform' never talks about anything else than GSC or GA4 to measure traffic, but I've seen many bloggers saying that they won't use GSC any longer and that they will even disconnect with Google.
But how to measure your traffic then? I am subscribed to Ahrefs, but never did much with it, is it the best option? Is it easy to use in terms of where your traffic is coming from? (organic, all socials..)
thanks!
Lizzy
I've used Matomo https://matomo.org/ before.
There is a cost, but it's free if you host it on your servers, which also requires setting up.
BUT
If it's a WPX hosted website then you know their SiteSupport will do it for you (speak to WPX sitesupport BEFOREHAND).
Clarity https://clarity.microsoft.com/ is another option I've seen, but not personally used.
And my first ever analytics tool (about 16 years ago) was Statcounter https://statcounter.com/ but I haven't used them for over 12 years now, so no idea what they're like.
And here's a list of some more, some paid, some free (again, I've never used any of these, so no idea what they're like)
https://searchengineland.com/google-analytics-4-alternatives-free-low-cost-428794
The only other thing I'd take into consideration is that the main reason you're looking to do this is to "hide from Google".
However, if your website has been "hit" in recent updates and you're literally getting ZERO traffic from Google (or less than an average of ONE click per ONE article published on your website), does it really matter whether you "hide" from Google or not?
If Google has "killed" your website in terms of Google rankings already, they can't make it any worse!
That being said, I will definitely be doing this for new websites...
PLUS
Has anyone yet in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE (yes, I going further than just Earth) actually worked out how the %$£& to use GA4 effectively??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@partha Interesting article, and No! GA4 loses me.
@partha Exactly! GA4 is bloody annoying lol!
I was just thinking in advance for my new Dutch site, if I would still connect it to Google. So I’ll use another one for that one, thanks!
@partha I kinda wanted to know this, my GA4 is telling me I have received 0 traffic for like the last 2 months or something, but Pinterest has clearly shown that it is not the case.
@jonathan To be honest, the various reporting platforms rarely match up, although I have found them to be reasonably similar as regards Pinterest.
For example, the stats on one of my accounts for this month, so far, show 95 outbound clicks on Pinterest but only 70 in GA.
However - users may simply be clicking on the image itself.
Pinterest may still track these clicks as outbound clicks in your analytics, even though they don’t lead to your website.
[quote data-userid=“4” data-postid=“1000821”]
@jonathan To be honest, the various reporting platforms rarely match up, although I have found them to be reasonably similar as regards Pinterest.
For example, the stats on one of my accounts for this month, so far, show 95 outbound clicks on Pinterest but only 70 in GA.
However - users may simply be clicking on the image itself.
Pinterest may still track these clicks as outbound clicks in your analytics, even though they don't lead to your website.
[/quote]
That makes it even more complicated for me, as lots of outbound clicks on Pinterest also lead to my Youtube channel lol. I have nearly 19k outbound clicks from Pinterest alone per month for my miniatures, but only 14k in total in GA. I'm not sure that I even have 3K-4K clicks towards Youtube, because there is also a little bit left from Google/Bing/facebook, etc.