Google Analytics

Google Analytics is Google's free analytics platform for websites and apps. The current generation is Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which replaced Universal Analytics when Google shut that version down in 2023. GA4 records traffic and behavior as events, so what visitors do can be followed from the first click through to a purchase or an inquiry.

Set up properly, the platform answers the questions every marketing team asks: how many visits arrive and from which channels, which pages people land on and how engaged they are once there, and which channels and pages drive the conversions that GA4 calls key events.

Google Analytics and SEO

For SEO, GA4 is where the value of organic traffic becomes visible in revenue and leads. It complements Google Search Console: Search Console shows what happens inside the search results, GA4 shows what happens after the click. Only together do they cover the whole path. GA4 is also one of the first places AI search becomes measurable, since visits from ChatGPT and other assistants land there as referral traffic.

What the numbers cannot tell you

Consent rules and browser restrictions mean no analytics platform sees everything anymore. GA4 fills the gaps with modeled data where consent is missing, so the figures give direction rather than truth: the month-by-month development is reliable, the third decimal is not. Turning the numbers into reporting somebody actually reads is the job of the guide to search analytics and reporting.