29th
February
2008
Have you ever tried to remove a Google Analytics account? What a pain in the neck this is, and I really can’t understand why.
The other day I ran up against my account limit of having too many Analytics accounts associated with my Gmail address. Going through my list of domains, I realized that there were lots of old accounts from months and even years ago that I no longer use and wanted to remove.
I had looked once before for an easy way to remove them and never could figure it out. I looked again, and there still is not a way to just dump it, even if YOU are the domain owner, and YOU are the only Admin. As the administrator (and even owner), you would think that there would be a simple way to just delete the account wouldn’t you? But no, Google doesn’t offer that option.
For accounts which I was the Admin for, I did find a hilarious and efficient way to remove accounts that I’d actually used once before – Create a dummy gmail account – grant access as an admin to it – then sign in and remove the REAL admin access, leaving the dummy account as the Admin. Quick and easy, and the process is really far easier than doing it the “right way”, which is somewhat different…
Instead, the “right way, is to visit this page (***update*** 1/2010) – Google has apparently removed this page!) and use the “contact us” form to send an e-mail, specifically requesting removal of the account.
Even more inconvenient, a separate contact form is needed for removal of EACH Analytics account that you want to get rid of.
So I spent the 20+ minutes necessary to fill out multiple forms, looking up each Analytics account number, while filling out my regular communication address in one field, and my Gmail address in another field, where they ask what address is associated with the analytics account.
Surprisingly I got a timely email response within four hours, however it informed me that the request had to come from the administrator e-mail address. It said:
Thank you for your email. I understand you would like to get your
Analytics accounts canceled. I am afraid I could find an account with
account ID: UA- xxxxxxx.Also, I could not cancel the account UA-xxxxxxx and UA-xxxxxxx as I notice that scott@pdxtc.com is not the administrator of the accounts.
Please send us a confirmation request for the cancellation from the login
email address of the administrator.
Besides the weird grammar, (“…afraid that I COULD find…”) it was a complete waste of time. Why didn’t they just say that in the first place on the contact form? Why not just SAY, that you have to use a Gmail address instead of giving me a second field?
So, I went to my Gmail account, and composed a new email, and copy/pasted the incident number in the subject line as well as Google’s reply in the body.
Then I summarized all of the accounts I wanted to remove, and sent them just one e-mail. Much to their credit, here’s the reply I got back about a day later:
Hello Scott,
Thank you for your email and the confirmation. I understand you want to
cancel a few Analytics accounts- UA-xxxxxxx, UA-xxxxxxx, UA-xxxxxxx,
UA-xxxxxx and UA-xxxxxxx.I realize you want these accounts out of your list. At your request we have canceled UA- xxxxxxx, UA-xxxxxxx and UA-xxxxxxx as you are the administrator of these accounts.
However, as you are not the administrator of the accounts UA-xxxxxxx and
UA-xxxxxxx I was not able to cancel them. I will need a confirmation from
the administrator of the accounts.In case you want these accounts to be removed from your list you will need
to contact the administrator of the accounts and ask them to remove your
user access. Once they disable your access these accounts will be out of
your list.If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at
to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords.We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising
available. Sincerely,(Name removed)
The Google AdWords Team
So while some of my requests were accomplished, because I was the administrator, I’m still stuck with multiple domains in my drop-down list that I would rather not have there at all.
I don’t work for those particular businesses, and some I never worked for, but they just gave me access so I could peek at their stats. I don’t wish to phone these people, and in fact, sending an e-mail to the contact addresses I have for some of them goes unanswered.
Why should I need to “contact the administrator of the accounts and ask them to remove your user access.“?
What the heck am I supposed to do now? Spend even more time to phone the company and try to track down their Web developer? Then HOPE they know what I’m talking about and have access to that old account?
This process seems to have NO REASON for being so protected either, that I can figure out. What exactly is the danger or harm that might come from REMOVING my access to an account? It’s totally ridiculous!
I’m now supposed to jump through hoops, and go through an entire explanation with someone else, in the hopes that they’ll remove my access, just so I can get them off my list?
Screw that…
If I had that much extra time, I’d… ummm, I’d… write a blog post about how stupid the whole process is.
John Hunter says:
Great post. I agree. I have one I want removed from my view, and it just stays there because I don’t want to bother. ARGH. Google should be better than this.
Scott says:
So for example, the company sells out or changes domain names, and a year later the old site and old employees are long gone, and I’m just stuck with it in my list FOREVER?
That’s just beyond stupid, yet that seems to be the case…
photos China says:
I looked a lot for this problem, thanks for this post I will try this contact form to delete my old accout.
But this way looks very strange for me, is it realy the unique solution ?
Scott says:
You’re welcome, and yes, this is REALLY the correct solution, and it worked for me, but only for sites which I am the administrator.
I seem to be stuck with the others, whom I’d rather not contact because walking them through removing me would be such a headache.
Roy says:
You got lucky, I don’t even get the reply email from google (waited a week already).
Steve says:
Just wanted to follow up on this to see if the situation has improved, its now May 2009 and i cannot see that it has. Hence, my finding this blog! Due to my job i have dozens of unwanted google analytics accounts in mine that i cannot remove and cannot realistically contact the administrator of. Any help out there?
Scott says:
Nope, for me it’s worse than ever now, and to my knowledge, there’s still no way to get rid of them unless you are the administrator.
How stupid is that? What could possibly be the reason for FORCING the account to remain in someone’s list?
Andy says:
ARGH!
I need this functionality> I added a domain that I shouldn’t have ano now my users see that. It is screwing things up because people are selecting the wrong option.
WHY WON”T GOOGLE ALLOW THIS? From a technology standpoint, it should be pretty darn easy.
car book value says:
I am having the same problem, but to make matters worse, the request a removal form is no longer there. I guess I’m going to have to just make a new analytics account and start fresh.
You would think it was called yahoo analytics by how ridiculous the lack of this feature is!
Chris says:
Same deal here. I cant believe that you cannot delete accounts.
I dont even own them just get them out of my analytics!! arghh!!!
seo says:
really annoying thing! I’m siting already 2 hours reading help and googling around to delete an account where I’m not an admin. account of my client. why it so stupid?
Scott says:
Yeah, this REALLY bugs me – things are much worse than when I wrote this post too, with far too many accounts in there…
Adam says:
I have the same exact issue. I have been looking into this for a while and have found nothing. I am often added to accounts to view analytics of sites I am managing or interested in purchasing, and if they don’t remove me it’s there forever. How stupid is that?
deJong-IT says:
I guess everyone has the same issue.
I also have an empty account, just a number, no domain, no other users or administrators. And I have no idea what it is and where I got it from
But I have another question
How many account can you have? You said you ran up against your account limit, but what’s the limit? I’m not there yet
Scott says:
I think it was 25 at the time – we have a few more accounts now though, so I’m not sure! Still would love to be able to delete ‘em myself!
Daniel says:
Hey, well as of may 11th if you hit your accounts overview, select “edit” to the right under the “action” column on the account you want to delete, then look under “default timezone” dropdown, there’s some text there with a link to delete the account. It doesn’t prompt you or anything though. the second you click that link, bam, gone
Daniel says:
this must literally be getting implemented right now, i could have sworn it wasn’t there a second ago, now its starting to prompt me as i delete stuff
Scott says:
I do see some changes taking place, but unless you have ADMIN access, you still cannot delete the account.
If someone has simply granted you access to their account, you are still stuck with it forever…
deJong-IT says:
Yes, it’s working! (with a prompt)
Steve says:
As far as I know, even after 2 or 3 years of requests, pleading and begging Google refuses to allow millions of its users to delete accounts in Analytics that they are not an admin for. Absolutely insane. Please let me know if this EVER changes.
Amit Patekar says:
Yaa, this is insane, how can a company like google do such thing. I am sure there is some kind of hidden profit or problem. Let me also know if this is possible in future. Just a delete button will do. Simple and sweet.
Thanks and regards
Amit Patekar
Eric says:
This is driving me crazy. I have a analytic account that i watched when i was helping with a site. The guy has since closed his doors and I have never heard from him again. Oh yea he lives in the UK. Soooooo are we just screwed and have to look at it for the rest of your lives?
Scott says:
Looks like you CAN actually delete them now, but only if there’s no Adwords account associated. I was able to free up a handful in mid May (see comments above) but still am stuck with outdated ones because they’re somehow linked to adwords accounts. How screwy…
Dave says:
This is ridiculous. It’s amazing how much of a problem this is. I’m having some other issues as well with using Google services with a non gmail account. Please fix this Google.
Pen says:
Very frustrating – I have 3 identical listings of my new website in my Google Analytics account. I am the admin of this account and I tried deleting the duplicates by clicking edit and delete, but they are still there. There does not seem to be a way to delete them or to contact Google directly. Does anyone know the Google contact URL?
Chad says:
Google is getting worse and worse. I keep trying to love them but this is terrible. A simple delete button could solve this entire issue. Sometimes I wonder if Google really wants to make peoples lives more difficult. I hope they find a solution for this soon. I am loosing my faith in Google.
Michael Merrell says:
I am having this same issue. I left my employer back in March of last year and prior to leaving I had them grant access to my account to view statistics on several of the websites.
Now they have removed my access to those websites, but not to the account itself. So I have this empty account there that I can’t view and can’t remove.
It is very frustrating. Even more so to see that they have a thread in their support forum where a Google Employee responded but still nothing as been done.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Analytics/thread?tid=608f5dcd377c5a54&hl=en
Scott says:
I still have nearly a dozen dead ones like this – Really frustrating! Oh well – Fixing it won’t make google any money, so it’s probably not high on their list to fix… (like reporting paid links is)
seo says:
Same deal here. Very bad.