I find checking Google Analytics addictive, especially in the early days when each visit is exciting. It's also not that helpful. Getting new sites off the ground takes time, so seeing a few visits in the early days does nothing other than make me impatient.

Blindly installing Google Analytics on every new site also adds unnecessary bloat. It uses extra resources and means you need to think about things like cookie consent.

I'm going to experiment with removing Google Analytics from all of my newer sites for at least six months to see if there's any compelling reason to re-install it. If I find that life goes on just fine without know much about website traffic, I will consider doing the same with my older, more established sites.

For now, I've removed all analytics from:

I'll be monitoring other metrics to keep an eye on performance. Newsletter subscribers, revenue, registered users, and SEO performance (through Google Search Console) should be enough to give me an idea of progress.

Who knows if this is a case of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone," but I'm hoping it will just be one less distraction. I'll report back in six months or so.