For most of this week, for many people, Google Analytics has been down. People have had a hard time bringing up analytics in their browsers.
While the home screen would display as usual, you could not get past the home screen to load any reports or other functionality.
We believe we have discovered the cause.
If you disable your ad blocker on Google Analytics, you should be able to view that data again.
For some reason, Google has completely blocked viewing its data tracking platform when using an ad blocker plugin like Ublock. At least for us.
We have not had to do anything like this before this week, for some unknown reason.
What Could This Mean?
Could it be that Google simply doesn’t want you to use ad blockers anymore on their products or services?
Or could it be something more, like selling ads on Google Analytics, and then you will have to pay for it to view it without ads?
The function of an ad blocker is to prevent ads from being shown on websites. This is, in theory, supposed to make the web a more pleasant place to visit because you won’t be inundated with ads.
If you can’t use an ad blocker, quite simply, you will be inundated with ads on the websites you visit.
Does this mean that Google is going to start selling ads in order for you to use Google Analytics?
We hope not.
Google Analytics Is a Critical Tool for SEO Professionals Everywhere
From reporting on data, to data aggregation, and using data to identify trends and patterns, and creating new strategies, SEO professionals use this data for critical website planning and SEO campaign management.
Without access to this data, this would throw the field of SEO into a world of hurt if access to the tool is somehow restricted or otherwise limited by an advertising requirement.
We hope that this is not where Google is going with this — either displaying ads on Google Analytics or forcing people to view ad experiences while using the tool.
Either way, it could spell the end of Google Analytics as we know it.
Additional Information
It appears to be an outage with varying causes and resulting solutions.
While Google Analytics continues to work for some without issue now, others have had to disable their ad blocker to bring Google Analytics up again.
Whatever the cause, if Google Analytics isn’t working for you yet, try disabling your ad blocker on that site.
If it is… great! You probably don’t have to do anything more.
We will continue to report on this story as it develops.
