Does blocking Google-analytics affect revenue for metafilter?

May 23, 2006 7:01 PM

Google-analytics.com. What's the upshot of my blocking scripts from this site/service? Does this effect advertising or revenue for metafilter? [more...]
posted by tiamat to Etiquette/Policy at 7:01 PM (13 comments total)

I use NoScript for Firefox and currently have it set to block google-analytics.com (the default, as the program uses a whitelist).
posted by tiamat at 7:02 PM on May 23, 2006

Nope, it doesn't affect it at all. I don't keep access logs so I farmed out the work to google's app instead. I check it once a month or so for basic metrics.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:35 PM on May 23, 2006

In general, it means that people who are tracking their site usage with that tool won't see you as a visitor.
posted by smackfu at 7:36 PM on May 23, 2006

i'm lazy. what's google-analytics.com?
posted by shmegegge at 7:39 PM on May 23, 2006

i'm lazy. what's google-analytics.com?

Something I block because it slows page access times way the hell down for me.
posted by cellphone at 7:51 PM on May 23, 2006

http://www.google.com/analytics/. Formerly known as Urchin.
posted by smackfu at 7:54 PM on May 23, 2006

Heh.
posted by brownpau at 7:57 PM on May 23, 2006

holy shit. I just checked stats since I started this last month. Last month the *.metafilter.com empire served 7.8 million pages to 3 million people. This month we're already up to those numbers.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:50 PM on May 23, 2006

Blimey - 150 lurkers for each member.
posted by blag at 3:16 AM on May 24, 2006

A single person hardly makes a difference in terms of reader demographics. Now, if EVERYBODY were to do it, it might be a bit of a bigger deal.
posted by antifuse at 3:51 AM on May 24, 2006

I would say the much bigger deal is that someone who's blocking this is surely blocking any ads.
posted by smackfu at 6:30 AM on May 24, 2006

Last month the *.metafilter.com empire served 7.8 million pages to 3 million people. This month we're already up to those numbers.

Bloody hell!

I wish we could see some wild data visualisation gubbins made out of this data, mathowie, or even just a crudely drawn pie chart showing how readership breaks down between the different parts of the site. Trade secrets nowadays though, I guess.

I would say the much bigger deal is that someone who's blocking this is surely blocking any ads.

Yeah, I really must get around to working out how to unblock sites like this one where I would quite like to click the odd ad (or would I not see any anyway, being permanently logged in?)
posted by jack_mo at 7:18 AM on May 24, 2006

I already have *.metafilter.com whitelisted in adblock plus, but I don't think it makes any difference because I'm always logged in.
posted by tiamat at 8:16 AM on May 24, 2006