GA 4 Question
-
What differences are you typically seeing in Google Analytics 4 compared to UA? For one site I have, UA says there were 2,342 new users. GA4 says there were 1,899 new users for the same time period. Does that seem like a normal amount of difference between the two platforms?
-
The thing is, in UA, there are two user metrics while in GA4, there are three - New users, Total users, and Active users, with the last one being a primary user metric in GA4. This is the number of distinct users who visited your website; so the users who have an engaged session, or when analytics collects these parameters:
- the first_visit event from a website
- the first_open event from an Android app
- the first_open from an iOS app
I spent some time trying to figure out GA4 and how it's different in terms of Google Analytics affiliate tracking (talking about the software I use). For example, in GA4 there is maximum data retention of 14 months, so there is some data discrepancy between the two. On the bright side, a 7-hour session timeout window is available.
-
@emilycarimus Google Analytics 4 is different from UA in a few ways. For example, GA4 focuses more on events and user behavior, while UA tracks pageviews and sessions. Also, GA4 is still relatively new, so there may be some kinks to be worked out.
As for the difference in new user counts for your site, it's hard to say whether that's normal without more information. It could be due to differences in tracking methods, user behavior, or other factors. But it's not unusual for various analytics platforms to report slightly different numbers. That being said, the difference between 2,342 and 1,899 new users seems high, so it is worth investigating further to ensure everything is set up correctly.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
GA4 showing 2 versions of my homepage
When my website Custom Made Casino switched from universal analytics to GA, i have noticed that now in the behavior section it is showing 2 versions of my homepage which I feel may be impacting seo. It is showing the main url which we use for everything, https://custommadecasino.com/ , and it is showing https://custommadecasino.com/index.php?route-common/home. This was never the case with universal. Does anyone know if this is a problem and if so, how do i fix it so that our proper homepage is what is indexed?
Technical SEO | | CustomMadeCasino0 -
Making the change to GA4?
We have a few clients we routinely do SEO work for, and we have campaigns set up for them here. However, with the change to GA4, how is that going to impact those campaigns? How do we make that switch? Where do we go for that? And how do we set up future campaigns for GA4? Right now it looks like the only option is still for UA, but the switch happens in less than three months, which is a little unnerving.
Reporting & Analytics | | buckii_modernoffice0 -
Disabling Hubspot AMP plugin - impact on GA
Hello, all!
Reporting & Analytics | | SimpleSearch
What impact have you seen if you've used the Hubspot AMP plugin and then disabled it?
We saw a big jump in sessions, which is weird because GA was tracking AMP pages. I'm trying to wrap my head around why this is happening but my brain isn't working 🙂0 -
Unsolved MOZ API to Google Data Studio
Dopes MOZ have anything like this? https://www.semrush.com/features/google-data-studio-connector/
Product Support | | WebMarkets0 -
Cross Domain Tracking in GA (without cross domain links)
Hi everyone, Been doing some research about cross-domain tracking in Google Analytics (preferably Universal Analytics where documentation is a bit spare). All of the tutorials focus on the auto-linking and ensuring links to the other site are taken care of. I'm considering a site that may not cross-link like that at all (or it may, but won't be the main avenue). A good example is: www.gap.com
Reporting & Analytics | | ketanmv
www.bananarepublic.com
www.oldnavy.com Now, they do link to the other brands in their navigation but let's pretend that they don't necessarily do that. Gap Corporate may want to roll up all these domains into a single reporting profile because customers can clearly visit any of those sites on their own and buy. It would be nice to know that Visitor X bought 2 items from gap.com and 3 from oldnavy.com... and of course, here were their campaigns, etc. From what I am reading, I am not sure this is really possible. It seems that the cross-domain code is really only best for when my main site links to another domain for checkout or something. But in my example, we are definitely not in control of that kind of behavior. Thoughts? Perhaps I need to recommend they go with subdomains only which Universal GA seems to handle quite fine out of the box. Thank you!0 -
How to track click on phone number on mobile device in GA as a goal?
Hi, I work with a lot of physicians and one of the things I'd like to do is add a goal in GA so we can try to track how many visitors are clicking the phone # to call the office from smartphones. Would doing this be as straight-forward as adding a the standard javascript click text that I'd add for an external link? And Is there a way to make a goal only "count" if the user-agent is a smartphone? Because if I attach the JS to the phone #, it's going to be in all of the HTML regardless of which device is used. Unless of course, I mess with the CSS to only make the javascript code appear on certain stylesheets. Thank you!
Reporting & Analytics | | Titan5520 -
How Do I Create Custom Reports In GA For First Click Attribution?
It only took me a year and a half to get the code Will Critchlow laid out in a blog post last year put on my website. Now I've finally got it but I need more instruction on how to create the custom report I need in GA! Will said he was going to expand on how to set up the custom reports but I'm not sure he ever did. So, can anyone either direct me to Will's follow-up post about setting up custom reports for first click attribution or tell me how to do it? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | eTundra0 -
GA custom reports involving pages and goals - what are the metrics saying?
Hi, All! I would like to create a custom report that will enable me to see which of my pages are contributing to goal completion on my site (so I can then optimize the pages that are contributing the most, with maximal ROI for the optimization investment). If I make the dimension "page/page title" and the metric "goal X completions" - which would make sense - what exactly are the numbers that I am seeing telling me? Is it how many times a person started the goal funnel from that pages (meaning every goal would appear only once and there be no overlap)? That doesn't appear to be the case with the numbers, because the headline in the main "Goals" section tells me I have 30 goal completions for that goal, for example, but the headline in the custom report (which is adding up all the numbers) is, say, 100. Or does it mean the number of times that this page was ever in the navigation path of someone who ended up completing a goal? Then the same goal would be counted multiple times, for each page in the path. Additionally, I see this strange thing on some of my reports where the actual funnel pages appear as contributing towards goals, which I guess makes sense, but again the numbers don't match up. If the goal was to get to page B, and the funnel was A->B, and there were supposedly 30 goal completions, my custom report says that A gave 28 goal completions and B gave 25. Anyone know for sure - or through testing - what the case is with all these things? Any explanations will be much appreciated!
Reporting & Analytics | | debi_zyx0