Is Google Analytic's a risk to your business in the SERP's

[Whitey]

I was prompted by Bretts' post here :

Yes, there has been speculation at Google is using analytics data from GA to influence serps. [webmasterworld.com...]

Is using Google Analytic's a risk to your business?

[Simsi]

Yes I'm interested in this as I suspect it can be based on that referenced thread. On top of Whitey's question, I'd also be interested to know if popular opinion suggests that alternative stats monitoring solutions like Statcounter and/or Quantcast might be regarded as safer bets, albeit they are simplified tools.

[hasimsg]

I consider GA as a good tool. Occasionally, I check it just to see how my sites perform. Or, when I need some data for targeting purpose.

I even turn off my raw logs to reduce server load. I never download them anyway.

It also a credible report (analysis summary) to propose to your advertisers or someone interesting to buy your site.

The risk, I never thought of it. Maybe someone can share some example which we can consider as a risk.

[wheel]

Is using Google Analytic's a risk to your business?

Why do they tie up all the server resources they need in order to run this tracking and analysis across the probably 100's of millions of sites using them? The cost cannot be inconsequential.

Why do they do that? Someone at Google had to say 'lets spend this money, it's a good idea'. Why is it a good idea for Google to do that?

If you think they're doing that for no other reason than to build relationships, that's one opinion.

If you think they're doing that to mine the data for their own purposes, that's another opinion.

No matter how it started out, at some point the serp engineers are going to want to have access to that data. Chief engineer Serp dude calls Chief engineer GA dude and says 'we need the data you have in order to make our serps better'. GA dude is going to say no to that request? If he does, I bet he gets a lesson real quick on the pecking order between the serps and analytics departments.

[LizaJane]

Someone at Google had to say 'lets spend this money, it's a good idea'.

Exactly why I do not use it. I keep my Google "tin hat" on as much as possible.

[arizonadude]

This has been discussed on here numerous times and everybody has an opinion.

I personally have had sites affected and the only thing they had in common was analytics while sites not using analytics were not affected.

I don't give Google nothing anymore and instead use Piwik.

[arizonadude]

This has been discussed on here numerous times and everybody has an opinion.

I personally have had sites affected and the only thing they had in common was analytics while sites not using analytics were not affected.

I don't give Google nothing anymore and instead use Piwik.

[arizonadude]

Sorry, double posted.