Josh Vogel

As I was doing some work for a client of mine I was checking out their analytics in preparation to set up a new site for them. Across the top of the screen when I entered the site I saw the following notice: “Universal Analytics will no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1, 2023. Prepare now by setting up and switching over to a Google Analytics 4 property.” Now granted, I don’t stay on top of Analytics news so much, as in the development world we are much more concerned with geting the code out than caring how much revenue or traffic it generates, but I was surprised that nothing about this had come across my radar as of yet.

So here’s the deal: Google is upgrading their analytics, presumably as a result of various market pressures, including GDPR and probably also Apple limiting how users can be trackeda cross devices. I’m guessing that the accuracy of the current code they are using is suffering as a result of this so the new version is going to address this via other technologies (not entirely sure how it work,s maybe this is some fodder for another blog post).

But, if you are really, savvy, the coming two weeks are really the best opportunity to get GA4, as it is being referred to, up and running on your site. This is because data from “Universal Analytics” (i.e. GA3) is not being transferred over to GA4 and GA3 will stop transmitting data on July 1, 2023, so if you wait until anytime after July 1 of this year, 2022, you will have a slight gap in your data if year-over-year (or really any time period over any other time period) is something you rely on when analyzing your traffic. I’m really curious how many site administrators are aware of this upcoming change. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the date gets pushed back if Google is seeing that a large portion of their analyitcs customers aren’t swtiched over in the near future.

So, if you’re a data-loving website owner and you want to continue to have the very best analytics possible, the time is now to set up your GA4 credentials. There is nothing stopping one from having botht the old and new analytics on their site, in fact, this is what is being advised by multiple sources, because otherwise you would just introduce that gap in your data today, rather than from a year from now and that is what should be avoided.