Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking marketing data and who’s looking at what to improve a website’s SEO performance over time. But after the implementation of GDPR is it has now become difficult and limited to trace out and process information without the user’s consent, thus affecting the its performance.
What is the GDPR and why is it important?
In simple terms GDPR or the General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in the European laws that address data protection and privacy. It also considers protecting any personal transfer of any identifiable information or data outside the business thus affecting the website that is accessible to a global audience.
What does JD CookieLess Google Analytics Plugin do?
The purpose of Google Analytics is to ask for user permission to store the cookies and then collect and track the data accordingly. But what if the user decline’s cookie permission then you cannot track and record the data, so to avoid the permission issue we have the JD CookieLess Google Analytics plugin that won’t ask a permission for storing the cookies but with this you will still be able to manage and track the user content without having to store them.
Plugin Installation Steps:-
Just like any other Joomla plugin you need to manually download and install this plugin for your Joomla website. Once installed navigate to Extensions > Plugin > Edit JD CookieLess Google Analytics Plugin.
Once you edit the plugin settings you have the following options available:
- SELECT ID TYPE- Choose the ID from where you wish to add the tags, here we use either analytics.js
- ENTER UA ID:- If you use the analytics.js file then enter its UA ID.
- ENTER MEASUREMENT ID:- If you choose to use the Google Tag Manager the add its measurement ID here.
- EXCLUDE USER GROUP- Select the user groups from whom you wish to hide the tracking code.
- SELF HOSTED LOCAL FILES- If you want to speed up your website enabling this will host your tracking file locally thus making no contact with any external server.
Google Analytics Data Processing Settings
In order to make the settings fully compatible to GDPR there still are a few settings that are needed that you need to set in your Google Analytics account. Follow the steps to know how:
1. Review & Accept the Data Processing Amendment
The first step is to accept the Data Processing Agreement. For that you need to login to your Google Analytics account, navigate to Account settings there you will review the amendments once reviewed click on Save and its done!
2. Disable Data Sharing
Next step is to turn off data sharing with Google. This can be done by unchecking the Data Sharing Settings under Account Settings.
3. Disable the User-ID feature for your Analytics Property
The other important steps here is to make sure how you associate the engagement data from different devices and multiple sessions to make sure you have a good audience for your content. This can be edited under Property Settings > Default Reporting Identity and the finally choose your identity.
