

168 Billion reasons to stop using Google Analytics - steelydaniel
http://www.diorex.com/168-billion-reasons-to-stop-using-google-analytics/

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mtts
"Think Google will not do it? The last time I read their terms and conditions,
there is nowhere that it says they cant do this. They will make oral
statements saying things like “If we did that we would lose the trust of our
advertisers and go out of business”, but they have refused to put that in
writing in any way, shape or form. In other words, they can do it."

Except that they won't, because what they say is actually true. For Google the
money is in large numbers of advertisers, not in small numbers of affiliate
clicks. This post makes no sense at all.

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noelchurchill
I agree for now. Google needs to protect their bread and butter, paid search,
which requires advertisers to have a lot of trust that Google does not act in
any way creating a conflict of interest.

However, right now is the good times for Google. The true test is to see how a
company (or real people) acts during the tough times. Google's time as king of
the mountain will only last so long, and it will be interesting to see how
they handle their descent when the time comes.

~~~
mtts
Good point. However, even if times get tough for Google, the basic principle
(a large number of advertisers that trust them are worth more than a smaller
number of referrals) still stands. For Google to start screwing their
advertisers, times would have to get so tough they'd want to throw their
entire business model overboard. Somehow I doubt that will happen.

(and I say this as someone who's not particularly fond of Google to boot)

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auston
I agree! Clicky [<http://getclicky.com>] FTW. Live traffic trumps delayed data
anyday!

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alex_c
That looks nice, but $17/month for a max of 50,000 pageviews/day is a bit of
sticker shock when coming from Google Analytics (and they obviously realize
that, since they have a "Why would I pay for Clicky when Google Analytics
offers the same thing for free?" section).

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schammy
We'd offer it for free if we had a way to. But we have to pay the bills and
buy new hardware somehow...

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alex_c
Don't get me wrong, I didn't say the pricing is unreasonable, and you are
providing features Analytics doesn't have. I'm just saying that it's hard to
compete with free, which I'm sure you're already aware of ;)

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coglethorpe
So has anyone here had success with or even tried affiliate marketing? I
didn't think this was the place where that would get mentioned, but that seems
to be who the blogger is most concerned with.

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goodkarma
I've been doing affiliate marketing for about 2 years now. So far my best
months have been five figures of profit (my best day was four figures of
profit). But I know of other folks that are doing much more than that..

~~~
coglethorpe
Wow. Um. wow.

I guess someone could say "You're doing it wrong" to me here. I've tried
integrating affiliate adds with blogs and another site that did rental
listings. I've made 18 dollars after tens of thousands of impressions.

I've come across so many affiliate marketing "seminars" and eBooks, but they
all smell of "get rich quick" scams to me.

Anyone care to share what works vs what doesn't? I'm really confused on the
topic.

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goodkarma
It really depends on the site and the niche and what you are trying to do etc.

I'm not sure if a discussion of affiliate marketing is really relevant to
"Hacker News".

There are a couple of eBooks I would recommend, but you can get most of that
info for free if you read some blogs and forums. Just search for "super
affiliate blog" and start your research there.. :)

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sah
I think this is relevant, and would love to hear more about it.

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goodkarma
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=236211>

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stanley
I second <http://www.wickedfire.com>

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noelchurchill
What is the best alternative to google analytics then?

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brfox
statcounter is really pretty good. Not as flashy or feature-rich as getclicky.
But, free and no ads and live updates are nice.

I agree that google analytics is not the best choice.

