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
-
Unsolved Solve a Lost GA Connection - can't get it to work
Hi, I followed all steps on https://mza.seotoolninja.com/help/moz-pro/getting-started/troubleshoot-google-analytics?_ga=2.15852085.2007735045.1676157945-122376721.1676157945 below Solve a Lost GA Connection multiple times but I keep getting the message "Our connection to your Google Analytics account was lost. Don't worry, you won't lose any data. Please follow the steps in our guide to reconnect.
Moz Pro | | silvansoeters
" I am on the free trial and would obviously like to connect to GA to see how everything is working. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.0 -
Unsolved Google Analytics (GA4) recommendations for SEO analysis?
Guides on Moz and elsewhere mostly refer to Google Analytics' Universal Analytics (UA). However, UA is being replaced with GA4, and the interface, options, and reporting are very different. Can you recommend a clear, thorough, and effective walkthrough of how to set up useful SEO reports in GA4? Is there a simple tool you recommend that will help connect historical data from UA to GA4 when GA4 is the only option available? If there's no simple tool, what values do you recommend retaining from UA for effective historical reporting? How would you use them? At minimum for reporting, I'd want to show month-to-month changes and year-to-year changes (in percentages and in real numbers) for the following: all site visits all organic visits organic visits as a percentage of all site visits organic visits that led to a specific goal completion organic visits that led to any goal completion Thanks in advance for your help!
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin_P1 -
Custom Events Not Showing in GA4
I have some experience in successfully creating custom events for GA4 via Tag Manager, but I have one account where my events are firing in GTM but not showing at all in GA4 (not real time or anywhere). I have twice done them over and published my changes but still no luck. Any ideas what else the issue can be? There are no internal filters at the moment. Thank you.
Reporting & Analytics | | bradsimonis1 -
How to see organic traffic trend in GA?
Hi Guys, I want to identify whether organic landing pages in Google Analytics month on month (over 6 month period) have increased or decreased in traffic and whether the traffic trend is positive or negative. See attachment of the data. In total there are 500 pages, so it's just not feasible to review each organic chart for each organic landing page to view the trend. I’m sure there is some way to view this in Google Analytics, but just not sure how. Any suggestions? Cheers. 0Bnv85G.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | spyaccounts140 -
Question on structuring URLs in a Drupal CMS - Adverse SEO or Analytics impacts?
Hello Moz Community, We're building out a health system (think a bunch of hospitals and clinics etc.) website on Drupal for the first time. Nebraskamed.com is our domain. Because we're using nodes instead of pages, our URL structure can pretty much be whatever we think makes sense. Our proposal is to drop /blog/ and related terms from the URL structure, because it doesn't really mean anything to the user. Instead, we'd use the service line "cancer" for example, followed by the name of the blog post or document. Example: nebraskamed.com/cancer/10-bone-cancer-myths Do you see any red flags (perhaps with SEO or Analytics for example) to what I'm proposing? domain name/service line/blog-post-name If so, do you have a URL structure you advise?
Reporting & Analytics | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine1 -
Show item status in GA - LIve vs sold vs unsold
Hi guys, I am working with SEO for an auction site with B2C and C2C. (similar to eBay) All item\products on our page have an unique url. The auction can last from hours to weeks.
Reporting & Analytics | | helgeolaussen
When the item is live, sold or (finished but)unsold it still has the same url.
So when I take a look at SEO traffic to items in Google Analytics, I can't tell if the item was live, sold or unsold at the time the user landed on the page. Which makes it diffucult to analyse the traffic. Is there anyway I can make GA show the status of the item for the time user landed on it? Best regards, Ceran0 -
(not provided) in GA
Hello, Google is displaying (not provided) for signed in users. Is there any workaround for this ? Any advanced segment by which can know more about such traffic ?
Reporting & Analytics | | seoug_20050 -
Using Clients GA account for their over all website to Optimize Their Blog? or is there a better way to compare apples to apples
I would like to optimize my clients blog. If I am using their GA account for their over all website but put in the sub folder for SEOMOz, will it detect that I only want to optimize the blog ex. http://xxx.com/blog or will I be seeing the GA for the entire site on SEOMOZ?
Reporting & Analytics | | CliffordC0