Internet users who feel that the tracking goes to far can install programs that disable the tracking. This ranges from the excellent NoScript add-on for the Firefox web browser or the Disconnect extension for the Google Chrome web browser.

If you want to block Google from tracking your every move, you’d could install Google Disconnect for the Firefox web browser. The add-on has been created by Brian Kennish, who is also responsible for the Facebook Disconnect extension which blocks website communication with Facebook.

Google Disconnect works similar to that extension, with the difference that it is blocking communication with Google servers. The Firefox add-on blocks Google scripts running on websites. This includes Google Adsense, Analytics and Google Plus. It is likely that additional scripts are blocked as well, but the Firefox add-on description is not providing enough information to tell which.

All Google services that you may use, Google Mail or Search for instance, continue to work as before. The extension is rather bare bones at the moment. Next to the missing list of services that it blocks, it is also not providing any visual indicators that scripts have been blocked. Options to block only select scripts are missing as well.

I have tested the add-on by opening websites that make use of Google services in Firefox with the script enabled, and in Google Chrome without the script. I also looked at the source code to make sure that the scripts were indeed not loaded at all.

Google Disconnect can be downloaded and installed at the official Mozilla add-on repository.

Ewhois is a free online service that can lookup information about a website online. All you need to do is to enter a url into the form on the service’s frontpage. Make sure you only enter the domain name and no protocol in the form. A click on search submits the site to the service, which, after some magic, displays its findings on the results page.

The results page displays general information about the selected domain at the top. You see the domain’s IP address, Google Analytics ID, Pagerank, Alexa and Compete Rank as well as the data of the last update. The amount of sites that share the same IP address and Google Analytics ID are also displayed here.

Below that is a tabbed interface that displays the contents of the reverse IP lookup, Reverse Google Analytics ID Lookup, Google Adsense ID Lookup and Whois Record. The Adsense and Analytics tabs are only displayed if the scripts are embedded on the target site.

The reverse IP lookup tab displays all websites that are hosted on the same IP address. Websites with an Alexa rank of less than 1000000 are displayed with their Alexa rank on screen. All others with a link to the website and a link to run the lookup for that site on eWhois.

Both the Reverse Google Adsense and Google Analytics ID lookup list websites that use the very same scripts on their sites. This can be usually tied to the same owner directly. The script may not list all sites of the owner in the listing. Still, the sites listed can reveal useful information about the original site’s owner.

Ewhois’ service sets itself apart from other services by displaying all the lookups that other services are usually only offering on separate pages. It is easy to use and comes without obtrusive advertising.

Google Analytics is implemented with JavaScript on the webmaster’s site so that it can track the traffic. The traffic tracking service has come under criticism lately in some countries as it theoretically gives Google additional information about millions of web users.

Advanced users who want to opt out of Google Analytics were able to do so by installing an ad blocking or script blocking script in their web browser.

NoScript for Firefox is for instance such an add-on that can block the Google Analytics script.

Google has now created a Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on that can also be used to block the script so that the traffic is not tracked by it.

The browser add-on is available for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and IE8, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and higher.

To provide website visitors with more choice about how their data is collected by Google Analytics, we have developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.

The add-on basically sends the opt-out notification to the Google Analytics script so that the information are not recorded. That is not as effective as blocking the script completely on the other hand.

NoScript for instance has the additional benefit that the script will not be loaded and executed at all which reduces the page loading time of websites that use Google Analytics.

Users who want to install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on can download it from the official Google Tools page-

Everton over at Connected Internet has now spotted an alternative code to the standard code that has to be added to the website. The alternative is also provided by Google and currently a beta. The main change to the generic code is that it uses asynchronous tracking which basically optimized the way the web browser loads the Google Analytics code.

Another difference is that the asynchronous code has to be placecd at the end of the HTML head tag opposed to the standard code which is placed at the end of the body tag.

The new Google Analytics tracking snippet offers the following benefits:

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
• Enhanced data collection and accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded

Just visit the Google Code page where the basic code for the asynchronous script is posted. All that needs to be done is to add this before the head tag and replace the UA-XXXXX-X with the code for that website (this can be found in the old code). It is also important to remove the old code from the website as it is not recommended to run both codes on the same website.

Google Analytics users who can access it will find a display of their website’s traffic graph along with another bar below that is showing the alerts for the corresponding days. Alerts are color coded with automatic alerts using a light green and custom alerts a light blue color. There will only be automatic alerts in the beginning.

The automatic alerts will give a webmaster immediate information about traffic jumps. This includes major traffic changes to certain pages on the website, a change in a page’s bounce rate, pageviews or a higher or lower than usual visitor stream from a specific country, state or region.

This gives the webmaster a quick overview of traffic developments on a specific web project or website. There are certain possibilities where Google Analytics Intelligence module can help. Webmasters could for instance investigate traffic increases or decreases more effectively as it will for instance display a decrease in traffic to a very popular page on the website. The webmaster could then analyze the issue further.

It is furthermore possible to create custom alerts and this could be very interesting to some webmasters. Custom alerts are created from a list of available alert conditions. The webmaster selects a traffic type to be monitored. This can be all traffic, traffic from a campaign, keyword, medium and landing or exit page. This traffic type is then combined with a metric that is triggering the alert. This again can be pageviews, total visitors, revenue or pre-defined goals. The selected metric is then given a threshold value. An alert is then automatically created whenever that value is crossed.

Another interesting option is to look at weekly or monthly reports which even gives a better overview as day to day variations are something that every webmaster has to live with. Google Analytics Intelligence is available in the left sidebar menu of the Google Analytics account.

SEO tools like WebCEO or SEO Elite are normally used to track rankings of keywords. It is also possible to check them manually which is fine for a few selected keywords but impossible for webmasters who track hundreds or even thousands of keywords.

I recently came upon a post on a blog that explained how to track Google rankings in Google Analytics. It did not work at first and I had to fix an error before the ranking tracking was actually working. Below is now the explanation on how to track a website’s ranking in Google.

You start by adding a new profile to an existing website. Start by clicking on the Add New Profile link on the right side of the overview of all websites that have been added to Google Analytics.

Now select to add a profile for an existing domain, select the domain from the drop down list and give it a unique name, e.g. website rankings. A click on continue will create the new website profile which will initially track the same data that the original profile is tracking.

You will be taken back to the profile overview page. Click on the edit link next to the newly created profile. Click on the Add Filter link on the right lower side of the profile detail page.

We need to create three new filters:

Filter name: Ranking 1
Filter type: Custom filter – Include
Filter field: Campaign Medium
Filter pattern: organic

Filter name: Ranking 2
Filter type: Custom filter – Include
Filter field: Campaign Source
Filter pattern: google

Filter name: Ranking 3
Filter type: Custom filter – Advanced
Field A -> Extract A: Campaign term, (.*)
Field B -> Extract B: Referral, (\?|&)cd=([^&]*)
Output To -> User Defined: $A1 (position: $B2)

It then takes a few hours before the first rankings can be checked as the new profile will start tracking traffic beginning with the time it was created.

The rankings are then accessible by clicking on Visitors > User Defined when checking the stats of a website. They look like this

And there you have it. A dead easy way to track keyword rankings in Google.

Lets begin with some basic information about browsers and operating system. More than 50% of all Ghacks visitors are using the Firefox web browser followed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with 35%, Google Chrome with 4%, Safari with 4% and Opera with close to 4%. The situation is different operating system wise. Roughly 90% of all users that come to Ghacks use a Windows operating system, hence the major concentration on that operating system. Apple Macintosh users make up almost 6% of all visits while Linux users are close to 3.5%.

If you look at some of the more technical statistics available you notice more diversity in the numbers. While 1024×768 is still the major screen resolution with almost 24%, 1280×800 with almost 20%, 1280×1024 with 16%, 1680×1050 and 1440×900 with 10% each are all above the 10% value and worth considering. There are still about 2% of all users that access with a screen resolution of 800×600.

And yes, there are some pretty strange resolutions out there like 2048×768, 3840×1024, 832×624, 1050×1400 or 1296×1304.

Where are all the visitors coming from? A majority of 40% comes from the United States followed by the United Kingdom with almost 9%, Canada with 5%, India and Australia with 3% and Germany with almost 3%.

The majority of users has a broadband connection at his disposal although there is a large 30% unknown factor in the stats. DSL, Cable and T1 users make up almost 60% of all connections to Ghacks while dialups are at about 2%.

That sums it up for now. Any other information that you would like to take a look at? Let me know and I might share it with everyone.

Some information could give clues on where the Ghacks visitors come from, what browser and operating system they use, the speed of their Internet connection and if they brush their teeth every morning.

Countries and Languages do not contain any surprises. English is the language of the blog and visitors from English speaking countries make up the majority of visitors to Ghacks. Far more interesting is the browser distribution. More than 50% of all visitors use Firefox compared to less than 40% who use Internet Explorer. Opera and Safari are almost reaching the 4% mark.

More than 90% of all visitors to my website use a Microsoft Windows operating system, less than 6% a Apple Mac and less than 3% Linux. No real surprise looking at browser resolutions either. A quarter is running 1024×768 and roughly 20% are running 1280×1024 and 1280×800.

Hope you enjoyed this small piece of information. The most interesting figure is in my opinion that Firefox is way in front of Internet Explorer. This was not always the case. Internet Explorer led the browser pack back in February by a slight margin of 1% (IE 46%, Firefox 45%). If I look back one year it was leading by 10% (IE 51%, Firefox 41%)

The biggest complaint I hear around however is over the fact Google Analytics doesn’t have any kind of ‘live tracking’ functions, statistics refresh just once per 24hours which can become a pain with time.

Enter Woopra.

Woopra is a real-time tracking service with a huge range of features and is also completely free at the moment, although premium services will eventually be available.

Woopra is also in private beta, although by signing up there’s a good chance you’ll be accepted fairly promptly. Current restrictions also include the number of websites you can have tracked for the beta.

Woopra is a desktop application, although a basic version exists online, nothing compared to Google Analytics however. I prefer using a desktop program however as they perform better, can have more intuitive interfaces and more advanced features.

The standout Woopra features include:

• Live Tracking
  Visitor tracking updated in real-time, dozens of other analytics updated several times a day. Live tracking is particularly useful for reacting to sudden events such as a Digg traffic surge etc.
• Rich User Interface
  Great UI combined with easy to use data representation tools and overlays.
• Multiple Site Monitoring
• Deep Analytics and Search Capabilities
  Huge range of data, all indexed for easy searching such as “Specific user names, IP addresses, geographic locations, user browsing data, visitor history, visitor paths, arrival and departure points”
• Instant Chatting
  A little creepy, but you can make a chat box pop-up in any site visitors browser. Not sure how many people would accept this and have a conversation.
• Visitor Tagging
  Recognise and monitor types of users and regular visitors.
• Real-time Notifications
  Define actions then receive notifications.
• Integration
  Integrate with WordPress (and other blog platforms) to get dashboard access to Woopra statistics. Also a wide range of developer tools enable plugins and applications to take advantage of the Woopra platform.

I highly recommend you giving this service a try!

I used the free Web Page Analyzer script to test four settings and compare the results that were shown on the website. I did test the following settings:

• WP-Cache enabled, Google Analytics off
• WP-Cache enabled, Google Analytics on
• WP-Cache off, Google Analytics on
• WP-Cache off, Google Analytics off

Let me give you a few instructions about the images below:

Object Type refers to all files that belong to a certain type such as HTML or CSS files.
Size is the total size of all files that belong to a certain type.
Download T1 the total loading time for a T1 connection (1.54 Mbps) in seconds.

WP-Cache enabled, Google Analytics off:

WP-Cache enabled, Google Analytics on:

WP-Cache disabled, Google Analytics on:

WP-Cache disabled, Google Analytics off:

The results are quite obvious. Loading time is reduced quite a bit when I turn off WP-Cache and Google Analytics. The total loading time for a T1 connection is 1.86 seconds while it is 2.25 seconds if both options are turned on.

Users with slower connections will see a hugh decrease in total loading time in seconds which is absolutely what I wanted to achieve. There are however two aspects that I have to consider.

Turning off wp-cache reduces the loading time but increases the load on the server because mysql requests are not cached anymore. This could lead to troubles for sites that face lots of visitors, e.g. if your site makes it on the digg frontpage. I would suggest to turn on wp-cache again if that happens to be able to handle the load.

Turning of Google Analytics does not have any negative impact on your site but webmasters with no other statistics script have the problem that they do not have access to their statistics anymore. I’m using awstats instead of Google Analytics on my server. If you are unsure contact your webhost and ask which script they are offering.

For those digital inspiration found a way to prevent that this data is sent to google for further analyzing. Whenever you visit a site that uses google analytics a small javascript file is downloaded to the visitors pc which reports the movement to google.

Now, to prevent this one simply has to add a line to his windows host file, which is located in system32/drivers/etc/host for windows xp and 2000 and in hosts/ for the other windows systems.

The line that needs to be added is

127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com

It redirects every request of www.google-analytics.com to 127.0.0.1 which is your own system. The script can´t find the js file and therefor nothing is reported.

Simply delete the line if you want to remove this again.

Prevent Google Analytics from Tracking your Visit

Formerly known as Urchin, Google Analytics is used by webmasters to calculate how many people are visiting their sites. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. The Google analytics tracking code is a small javascript, urchin.js, and it is installed on web pages with the intention of collecting user data, or in the case of online merchants, “Customer data”. What this means, in short, is that site visitors (that’s you) are tracked by utilizing a combination of server and “client-side technology”. This includes tracking cookies and adware as well as other unwanted things that will reveal as much of your personal information and browsing history to the website owner. That is just one of the ways that you end up with Spam.

This is not to state that Google is trying to spread adware cookies (?), but rather, website owners take advantage of Google Analytics to determine what sites you are visiting, how many times you click on certain product or service categories, etc. There are certainly website owners that are simply collecting the data for demographic purposes and are not dropping cookies on your operating system as though they were feeding the cookie monster. However, the reality is that is can be safely assumed that most are collecting any data about user internet activity as they can. Now the question is how to stop it?

You definitely can stop Google Analytics from tracking your site visits. It is simply a matter of going to your Windows Hosts file and inserting the following line:

127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com

If you do not know how to access your Hosts file, then you need to know so that you can eliminate certain sites from accessing your computer. When a line such as the one above is added to the Hosts file, the browser cannot download the urchin.js file mentioned earlier. They can still identify that you have visited a site, but they cannot tell what you do after that.

The Windows 7 hosts file is located in C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ or %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\ and cannot be edited by normal users. To edit the hosts file, Click Start – search for “Notepad“, right-click and select “Run as Administrator“.

For Windows XP, the path is C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, much as it is in Windows 7, but you are able to readily edit it without the need to use a text editor. All Windows Hosts files are located under \drivers\etc.

Once you have accessed the Hosts file, add the line described above and this will block Google Analytics from tracking your visits to websites. There are other lines that you can add to the Hosts file to further ensure security and privacy:

127.0.0.1 adwords.google.com
127.0.0.1 pagead.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 adservices.google.com
127.0.0.1 imageads.googleadservices.com
127.0.0.1 imageads1.googleadservices.com
127.0.0.1 www.googleadservices.com
127.0.0.1 apps5.oingo.com

By including these lines in your Hosts file, you will also block Google AdSense. This gives you a greater level of privacy with your web searches and perhaps you won’t have as many pop-ups and spam coming to you. Good luck!