Analytics without the surveillance
Hi, I'm Sophie. Darge is a practical field guide to privacy-first analytics, cookieless marketing and SEO that actually respects the people behind the pageviews — Plausible, Fathom, Matomo, Umami and the strategies that make them pay off.
What you'll find here
Everything on Darge sits in one of these clusters. Pick the lane that matches what you're trying to fix.
Setup guides and head-to-heads for Plausible, Fathom, Matomo, Umami and Simple Analytics — cookieless, consent-free, owned by you.
Explore analytics → 02 — GrowTechnical audits, Core Web Vitals, keyword research and content optimisation that ranks — without leaning on invasive user tracking.
Explore SEO → 03 — MarketFirst-party data, contextual targeting and consent done right — how to thrive once the third-party cookie is finally gone.
Explore marketing →Fresh off the desk
Ask ten website owners which law makes them show a cookie banner and most will say "GDPR". They're half right — and the missing half causes a surprising number of compliance mistakes. The rule…
There's a source of SEO insight sitting on your server right now that doesn't require a single tracking script, cookie,…
If you want website analytics that don't put a cookie on your visitors, don't require a consent banner, and don't…
Most A/B testing tutorials assume you're happy to drop a third-party script on your site, set a cookie on every…
If you've been running digital ads for any length of time, you've probably noticed the ground shifting beneath your feet.…
You don't need invasive tracking to measure what matters in SEO. Most SEO guides assume you're running Google Analytics. They…
Google Analytics has been the default choice for tracking website performance for over a decade. But with growing privacy regulations,…
Why this site exists
I used to be a Google Analytics power user — custom dimensions, user-level funnels, the lot. Then I started asking: do we really need all this data?
Turns out, most businesses don't. A lightweight, privacy-friendly setup tells you what matters — without the legal headaches, without the cookie pop-ups, and without feeling like you're spying on people. Darge is where I write down everything I learn making that switch work.
More about SophieNo spam, ever
The occasional note on cookieless analytics, ethical SEO and what's actually working — written by a human, sent only when there's something worth saying.
