A while back, I wrote a post on Why Using Google Analytics Is A Bad Idea. Rather than me reiterating what I said in that post, basically if you install Google Analytics code on your site, you are giving Google a back door window into your traffic patterns and they will quickly determine that your (affiliate) site is not the kind of site they want in their index.

Open Source Web Analytics Software

So you have to use an alternative. One alternative I’ve been trying out is Piwik (I’ve no idea what the name means or signifies) – an open source alternative to Google Analytics (open source means that it’s completely free to download and use).

The Piwik Dashboard. Click the image to go to the live Piwik Demo

It’s a PHP script that you install on one of your domains. Installation is pretty straightforward but you may need a bit of technical know-how if installation doesn’t run smoothly.

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The Terms of Service (TOS) for Google Analytics basically say that they can do whatever they want with the data they collect from your sites and this includes using that information to determine search engine rankings.

By installing the Google Analytics code on your site, you are giving Google a back door window into your traffic patterns and they will quickly determine that your (affiliate) site is not the kind of site they want in their index. You see, Google doesn’t really like affiliate sites. Perhaps I should qualify that assertion a bit more. Google doesn’t like little-guy affiliate sites; they don’t seem to have a problem with the big guys and large corporations running affiliate ads on their sites.

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