1 Goggle Analytics Account or Multiple?

[fun52dig]

Currently I track all my clients sites under one Google Analytics account. Is this a good practice or should I setup a separate account for each client?  My concern is that if I every had a problem with one website could it effect all websites under the same account?  An example would be that one of my clients decides to start linking to some spamy websites that are sandboxed by Google.  Could this hurt my other accounts? Can one rotten apple spoil the whole bunch under the same account?

Thanks All!
Gary Downey

[SparkplugDigital]

I don't believe a penalty can spread to another site because they share a Google Analytics account.

I prefer to set up a separate Google Analytics account for each client for the client's benefit. If they no longer need your services, they would still be able to access their GA historical data if they have their own account.

[TommySwanson52]

I work at a decent size agency, and I faced this issue when I came on staff. I highly recommend you use separate accounts and not profiles. There are a ton of implications of using profiles, outside of the spam that you're concerned about.

1. First of all, I doubt that Google would penalize the other profiles on that account.

2. If your clients ever want administrator access to setup goals, ecommerce, or link their Adwords account, giving them administrator access would give them access to all profiles, not their specific website.

3. If your clients ever want to run Adwords campaigns, the ability to link multiple Adwords accounts to specific profiles within a single account is in beta currently (I believe). Just a few months ago, I don't believe this was possible at all.

4. If you ever do lose a client (which happens), you can't transfer profile ownership to someone.

Hope this helps, even if it's not SEO specific.

[KeriMorgret]

I agree here with almost everything, especially with linking and transferring the GA accounts.

About five years ago an AdWords customer of the one person agency I was contracting for disputed about $30-40 total worth of charges, spread over three payments. All of the AdWords accounts I had were suspended without notice, even those on different credit cards and those not at all related to this agency. Most of them did have an analytics account in common, and they were all on the same Google Webmaster Tools account. Google would not say how they had determined which other ads to shut off, but I did get the rest of the accounts back online in short order and never had another problem with them.