Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google Analytics 4 is Google’s free analytics platform, and the only version still running. Its predecessor, Universal Analytics, stopped processing data on July 1, 2023 for standard properties and on July 1, 2024 for paid Analytics 360 properties. Old tutorials that mention views, goals, or bounce rate as the main metric are describing Universal Analytics.

GA4 is event-based. Every interaction, from a page load to a scroll, a click, or a form submit, is recorded as an event with parameters attached. A page_view event, for example, carries page_location with the URL. Events you mark as important to the business are called key events.

Data flows in through a data stream: one for a website, and separate ones for iOS or Android apps. Each web stream has a measurement ID that starts with G-, which is what you place in the Google tag.

Reports are the standard dashboards everyone sees. Explorations are custom analyses like funnels and path exploration, and they are limited by your data retention setting, which is 2 months by default and can be raised to 14 months on standard properties.

GA4 measures what visitors do on your site. Search Console measures how your site performs in Google Search before the visit: impressions, clicks, and positions. You need both, and they can be linked.