Performancing vs Google Analytics vs Plugin

I use both Google Analytics and Performancing Metrics.
Both have their strong points. I think Metrics is great for a quick look over “key” stats or indicators. Analytics is great when you want to dig deeper. Metrics is very easy to use and navigate. Analytics can be a bit overwhelming at first.

There are plugins to make integrating both of them with your WP blog easy.

I’ve not used any of the other plugins, so can’t comment.

Hi HandySolo,
Thanks for the info. At this time I am primarily interested in just basic statistics. I would especially like to see how the blog traffic compares with that of the associated web site.

I’m also hoping to use the experience I gain here to set up a WordPress blog and stats for a non-profit group I’m an officer of. Then I can produce statistics for both the blog and the web site as I am providing the hosting (and no – I don’t get paid but rather pay for it – we are truely non-profit. For more info see https://www.chicagospace.org )

I think I’ll try out Metrics first and see how well that meets my needs.

Hmmmm, I wonder: is there any reason not to subscribe to both services at the same time? Has anyone reading this done that and if so what was your experience.

Thanks.
Jim

I’d do both (well, I already do…). It won’t hurt anything to run ’em side by side for a while.

Hi HandySolo,

For a while??? I think I will install Metrics first. Then once I am convinced that it is running ok I’ll install Analytics and then compare. I wonder if using Google’s Analytics package has any impact on how Google views your site with respect to their other services.

Thanks again,
Jim

Well, I’ve been running both ever since metrics started (I was an early analytics beta user). For a while can mean forever I suppose ??

And no, I really don’t think running analytics has any impact on how the big “G” views your site. If you’re running AdSense it has some interesting reports though.

Hi HandySolo,

Well I can tell you that already I do not like Performancing because the javascript they require puts my email address right into the web page. Great now I’m going to get a ton of spam. My next post will be to them to find out why they do that. If its required then its so long Performancing.

Jim.

Okay, I searched the Performancing forum and found that someone else had asked the same question but got no answer. I asked the question and hopefully will get an answer. In the meantime I’ve gone in and changed their javascript to output a dummy email address.
I’ll let you know what happens.

Jim

Ok I’ve just installed the javascript for Google Analytics. There is no personal info in the script – just a Google account number.

If you go to https://artsnova.com/blog/ and do a view on the source, you will see the two javascripts all the way at the bottom. I put in a comment line about Google before the start of the Google script.

Note that in the Performancing script that preceeds the Google script, I edited in a dummy email address by removing the PHP variable reference and replacing it with the dummy address.

Jim

Hello,

Okay a correction with apologies to Performancing. When I noted the presence of my email address on the web page, I happened to be logged into blog admin at the time. I missed the line of JS code that detected that it was me requesting the page and consequently output my email address as a part of the page. When I am not logged in, my email address is not output.

Jim