How to de-Google your website to make it faster and visitor friendly
Did you know that 94% of sites include at least one third-party resource while the median page requests content from 9 different domains? These third-party resources represent 35% of the total network activity and 7 of the 10 most used resources are owned by Google.
Third-party resources slow down the web and are a concern for the privacy of people who visit these sites. Google themselves will point the finger at their analytics and ads when you use their speed tests. They provide guides on making third-party resources less slow too.
Here’s how you can de-Google-ify your site, get fully independent and in control while having faster loading time, being more eco-friendly and more compliant with the privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
Alternatives to Google Blogger
The passionate community behind the project has created tens of thousands of free design themes and plugins that you can use to create any website that you want. It also allows you to easily export any of the content you create in case you ever decide to leave.
Alternatives to Google reCAPTCHA
For WordPress sites. It protects everything on your site from the contact form to the comments area. And it does so without affecting real users and without forcing them to do different tests.
hCaptcha which is like reCAPTCHA but a bit more transparent, independent and privacy-friendly.
Alternatives to Google Adsense
If you want to use digital advertising, you may consider blockchain-based Basic Attention Token by the company behind the Brave browser.
Sell subscriptions and accept donations from your loyal fans using services such as Patreon.
Alternatives to YouTube
PeerTube is another interesting alternative. It’s a free, open-source, federated and decentralized video platform that uses peer-to-peer technology.
A federated platform allows you to join one of the existing instances or create your own which then syncs with the rest of the network.
Vimeo is one of the most popular alternatives to YouTube when you want to embed a video on your site.
Alternatives to Google Maps
OpenStreetMap is a great alternative if you’re simply embedding a map or directions on your site. It’s open-source and community-driven.
Alternatives to Google Analytics
And for those who want to understand their search engine visibility and traffic they get from Google, there’s Search Console which is the most accurate way of doing that. And you don’t need to add any scripts to your site to use it. It’s the Google tool I use the most these days.
PostHog is an option for open-source product analytics.
I'm working on Plausible Analytics. Modern dashboard, simple metrics to understand, open source, lightweight script (<1 KB), no cookies and doesn't collect personal data so no need for cookie/GDPR consent banner.
Matomo (formerly known as Piwik) is one of the big players in the ethical analytics market. It’s an open-source analytics software that you can either self-host on your domain name for free or you can pay them to host it in the cloud.
