A competitor to Google Analytics named Simple Analytics wrote on its blog "Google penalizes you for using Google Analytics." John Mueller of Google was asked if this is true and John said on Twitter "No, it's not the case that we penalize for Google Analytics."
No, it's not the case that we penalize for Google Analytics. We don't special-case Google products in Search, but that goes both ways. The LH score is not what we use in Search, but my ancient WP + GA site is 100 there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/fKl58V4dSt
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) May 3, 2021
Why did Simple Analytics say this? Well, they are using the Page Experience Update as a reason to use such a bold title. They wrote "Simple Analytics is performing better than Google Analytics. Google [Analytics] hurts the performance score by roughly 4%, and we almost have zero impact (0.1%). If you care about a fast website and are still using Google Analytics, this could be a good moment to switch. Do you want to score high on SERP (Search Engine Results Page), then it could have an impact, but it’s unknown how much."
As I've been reporting for a while now, the Google Page Experience Update won't be a big update. Google even said you should "should not expect drastic changes" with this update to sites rankings.
That all being said, Google also said it does not use Google Analytics for ranking purposes.
There are two big threads on this topic of Google Analytics hurting a site from ranking well in Google Search. The first is on Twitter and the second is on HackerNews - so feel free to click through and read them.
Forum discussion at Twitter and HackerNews.
