What are the privacy concerns with Google Analytics and SEO data?
Question: -
Q: Is there any risk to adding Google's javascript to your pages, such as all this data becoming the property of Google, or gaining access to other info on your server?
Answer: -
Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil,' and of course if a corporation says it isn't evil we should take it at its word. More seriously and realistically, of course privacy is a huge concern for society with respect to Google. Through Analytics, the Google Toolbar, Google's Gmail service and other offerings Google has an unparalleled amount of information that can match an IP address with surfing and searching habits.
Similarly, from the vendor perspective Google has a wealth of information about how people get to your website and what they do once they are there. They do not have access to your server per se. The Javascript Code isn't malicious - but it does track data back to Google. So they know what surfer behavior is, but not other data proprietary to your website. Nonetheless, many banks and other quasi-government institutions cannot use Google Analytics for these reasons.
For small websites, Google Analytics has become the standard in free, high quality metrics and unfortunately our society as a whole has not (yet) regulated Google's access to this information. We do not make the markets - we, unlike Google, take them as they are given. So we can either say yes or no to Analytics.
Hope this helps!
- Jason McDonald - info@jm-seo.org
|
