Can You Get WordPress Analytics Without Using Google?
You’re not alone.
Loads of people are trying to use fewer Google products, as evidenced by the bustling DeGoogle subreddit with over 80,000 members.
If you’ve run websites before, you’ve undoubtedly used Google Analytics, maybe for a decade or longer. Up until recently, there weren’t many alternatives, but that’s all changing now.
Due to new privacy laws, such as the GDPR and CCPA, lots of users have been forced to switch to alternatives.
So if that’s the case, it begs the question: do you even need to use Google Analytics?
Do you need to use Google for Analytics?
The truth is you don’t need to use Google Analytics for your WordPress website.
And that doesn’t mean you can’t have analytics! There are many alternatives available that are privacy-friendly and easier to use too.
Looking back, it is kind of funny that everyone, from individual bloggers to enterprise businesses, used Google Analytics. It was always an enterprise solution and way too complicated for small businesses, but everyone used it regardless because it was free.
Now we know better.
In order to help you get analytics running on your site without using GA, here are a few of our top recommendations.
Five Google Analytics alternatives for WordPress
Each solution listed here is a WordPress plugin, which means you can install them easily, and you don’t have to create an account anywhere else.
They also have automatic tracking, so there is little to no setup process. Feel free to try a few of them since there is no risk involved.
1. Independent Analytics
We made Independent Analytics to give WordPress users a much simpler alternative to Google Analytics. As a WordPress plugin, it’s easy to install and doesn’t require an external account elsewhere.
Independent Analytics is a great choice for WP users because it tracks automatically without any configuration and adds an analytics dashboard directly to the admin dashboard.
From the analytics dashboard, you can find your top pages, referrers, and visitor geolocations. You can also filter your data by numerous different metrics and properties. For instance, you can see views for only your blog posts or articles published by a specific author.
If you need to abide by privacy laws, such as GDPR or CCPA, you’ll appreciate that Independent Analytics doesn’t use cookies or store personally identifiable information.
Since it’s free and only takes a minute to install, go ahead and give it a try today and see how well it works for your site.
Statify
If you want something really simple, it doesn’t get better than Statify. This lightweight plugin has no performance impact and is completely GDPR-compliant.
Statify adds a dashboard widget to your admin where you can see your site’s recent pageviews upon logging in. This makes it easy to review your site’s performance and see if your traffic is growing or not.
While Statify is the simplest and easiest WordPress analytics plugin to use, its simplicity is also a drawback. For example, it can’t show you your traffic sources and doesn’t include any sorting or filtering functionality.
If your analytics needs are basic, Statify might be the best Google Analytics alternative for your WP website.
WP Statistics
WP Statistics is another popular option for adding analytics to WordPress without using Google Analytics.
This plugin is extremely data-rich and includes reports for your traffic sources, top search terms, and visitor devices, to name a few. They also have the option to disable the use of cookies, and this makes their platform more privacy-friendly.
The only drawback to using this plugin is that the UI is outdated. It doesn’t have the clean aesthetic and navigation you might expect from a newer app or plugin.
Overall, it’s a solid analytics plugin and could be a good choice if you want lots of data and reporting.
4. Jetpack
You’ve probably heard of Jetpack; it’s developed by the company behind WordPress, Automattic, and adds the same features from the WordPress.com platform to self-hosted WordPress websites.
Jetpack includes numerous modules, and among them is one for stats. The stats are easy to read and can show you how many visitors and views your site gets each day. There are some neat WP integrations, like the ability to see the current page’s stats in the admin bar.
While Jetpack Stats is an attractive and minimalist analytics solution for WordPress, it requires you to install the Jetpack plugin, which many WP users find bloated. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to install Jetpack Stats on its own.
That said, if you are interested in the other functionality included in Jetpack, that might make it an even more attractive option for your site.
5. Koko Analytics
One last plugin we want to highlight is Koko Analytics. This plugin offers its own analytics platform that records your site’s views and visitors.
The dashboard added by Koko is straightforward and easy to read. You can clearly see how many views VS visitors you had each day and change the date range to any timeframe you want. It also includes a list of your top traffic sources.
Like some of the other analytics plugins, Koko Analytics doesn’t include filtering options or geographic locations for visitors. That said, it’s a great option if you’re looking for a simple, privacy-friendly alternative to Google.
Start tracking without Google
The new version of Google Analytics is more complicated than ever, leaving many people scrambling for an alternative.
You might be relieved to have found out that it’s not necessary to use Google Analytics at all. No more privacy concerns or complicated UIs!
While there are lots of great alternatives available, we hope you’ll try out our solution, Independent Analytics.
Learn more about Independent Analytics
It’s free, installs in seconds, and tracks visitors automatically upon installation. We also have a knowledge base filled with tutorials to help you get the most out of it.
Thanks for reading this guide on whether it’s possible to get WordPress analytics without Google Analytics.
If you have any questions, post in the comments section below.
Originally published at https://independentwp.com/blog/wordpress-analytics-without-google/ on May 25, 2023.
