Universal Analytics Is Gone — GA4 Is Now the Only Standard
If your site was set up before 2023 and the analytics have not been touched since, there is a good chance you are collecting little or no data right now. Universal Analytics, which Google shut down in July 2023, no longer records new data. If you have not switched to GA4, the visitor and conversion history of the last two or three years is simply missing. GA4 is a one-time setup — once it is in place, data starts accumulating automatically.
The date Universal Analytics shut down — per Google's official announcement, the old version stopped recording new data from this date onwards.
What Can You Learn with GA4?
- Where visitors found you: Google search, paid ads, social media, direct, or via another site
- Which pages attracted the most attention and where visitors dropped off
- Which target actions were completed — phone calls, form submissions, purchases
- Behaviour differences between desktop, tablet, and mobile visitors
- If Google Ads is connected: which keyword or ad group drove conversions and which only got clicks
One of the most important uses of GA4 is linking it to your Google Ads account. Once connected, you can see not just the number of clicks on each campaign, but what those clicks actually produced on your site. If an ad got 500 clicks but zero form submissions, that budget was wasted. If another ad brought 30 form submissions from just 100 clicks, shifting budget there is the logical move. This decision is based directly on data — not guesswork.