How I made my website free from cookies

Here’s one weird trick to take that cookie pop-up off of your website 

  • Step one – Stop using Google Analytics (GA).

  • Step Two – Use Blacklight to find out what other pixels and tracking codes are on your website – it took a bit to get that off of mine but now I know it’s gone.

  • Step three – set yourself up with a privacy-focused analytics system. This website uses Plausible, but lots of systems including Fathom and Matomo also offer privacy-first analytics that don’t track or store your visitor’s data.

Benefits of going cookie-free

Well, I got to take down that annoying pop-up for one. Now the only pop-up is my email list sign up which is where I want the focus anyway. And now visitors can also more clearly see the X to close that pop up without distraction.

My site also uses less energy now – GA uses 17.7 KB to add their code to your site and Plausible is a lightweight code that uses less than 1 KB. Lightweight code means that my website loads more quickly.

Why I started with GA in the first place

But in all seriousness, I learned how to use GA on the job many years ago, and it wasn’t until maybe 2017 that I found out that there were alternatives that were

  • A – so much easier to use and interpret

  • B – not following your customers around the internet.

The training I got for GA never talked about the privacy violations, and certainly did not inform me that this was why we had cookies.

OK but is it free still?

No. The thing is Google Analytics is free in exchange for ALL OF YOUR DATA.

I am choosing to pay to not exchange your data. But my business model has always centered around ethics and responsibility and I did not consider this a hard choice.

The hardest choice was testing out three different platforms before settling on Plausible. All of the platforms that I tested were cookie-free, easy to use and easy to set up. I even drew up my own comparison chart aimed at small solo business owners since many of the options are also aimed at enterprise-level businesses.

Won’t this mean that I rank lower on Google?

Nope. Your searchability has so much more to do with the content of your site, your marketing efforts and small details like backlinks and more. Take the GA code from your site and your stats will be the same. Plus, with Bing, Duck Duck GO and Mozilla, there are lots of other browsing options that don’t need the GA code on your site.

Have you published your comparison chart of cookie-less analytics?

Not yet! I plan to test out even more to be able to put out a more comprehensive chart along with a break down of what I think is best for solo business owners.

Do you have a preferred recipe for cookies?

I’m a lover of almost all actual, edible cookies. I am dying to try this recipe.