Hi everyone,
I’m having an issue with a website where there’s a big difference between its GSC and GA4 data for organic traffic. For example, new users for organic traffic in GA4 are showing 650, but GSC clicks are only 130. Can anyone explain why there’s such a huge gap?
Any help from SEO experts would be really appreciated.
They track different things.
Also, GSC only tracks organic traffic from Google.
Eva said:
They track different things.
Also, GSC only tracks organic traffic from Google.
It’s probably consent mode v2.
Eva said:
They track different things.
Also, GSC only tracks organic traffic from Google.
It’s probably consent mode v2.
If that were the case, the results would be the opposite. There would be less traffic shown in GA4, not more.
@Eva
Could it be an issue with the UA tracking code? I checked, and it seems like I’m using an old UA tracking code instead of the newer one.
Oliver_james said:
@Eva
Could it be an issue with the UA tracking code? I checked, and it seems like I’m using an old UA tracking code instead of the newer one.
UA doesn’t track anything anymore.
@Eva
UA tags can still pass data to GA4 if you’re using the automatic GA4 setup. GA should recognize this as the same user normally, but you might want to remove both if you’ve got both the UA and GA4 tags running on the site.
@EvansBrown14
That’s true. I forgot about that setup. If both are running, they might be sending duplicate data, which could inflate the numbers.
Eva said:
They track different things.
Also, GSC only tracks organic traffic from Google.
I’ve even dug deep to check the source, but the difference for Google is still more than double.
It’s most likely Consent Mode v2 - I mentioned this in this forum a few months ago.
Basically, if people opt out of cookies, Analytics won’t record anything. So, if 50% of people opt out, you’ll lose 50% of traffic and conversions. I’ve seen discrepancies of 42-51% between GSC and Analytics.
I’ve also seen organic traffic increase by 15% over the past 6 months, but when measured from GA4, it showed organic traffic as down. I have a more detailed blog post on this, but that’s the short version.
@Abby
This sounds like duplicate tracking to me. GA is reporting 650 while GSC shows 130, but consent mode would result in the opposite since GSC isn’t affected by cookies.
It could also be other traffic sources like Bing, social channels, or direct traffic that aren’t counted by GSC. You could check the source of your traffic in GA to see if those are contributing more than Google.
@Abby
Let him cook.
@Abby
Could you share the link to your blog post?
If you’re executing the GA4 code twice, that could be the cause.
GSC doesn’t track anything other than traffic from Google search result pages. So, it’s never going to match GA because they measure different things. Just because someone clicks a link on a results page doesn’t mean they stay on the page long enough for the GA event to trigger. They might even back out before the page loads.
GSC tracks organic traffic, but GA4 tracks all traffic sources, including Bing and social channels.
Lucian said:
GSC tracks organic traffic, but GA4 tracks all traffic sources, including Bing and social channels.
Please read the comments. I already said that GA tracks everything.
There have been issues with GSC/GA reporting incorrectly over the past couple of weeks. It’s been happening to a lot of people.
Brandy said:
There have been issues with GSC/GA reporting incorrectly over the past couple of weeks. It’s been happening to a lot of people.
I’ve been seeing this for a few months. I recently joined a new company and noticed the issue when checking traffic on both.
GSC calculates using the average instead of the median. In statistics, the median is usually more accurate. GSC is an overview with sample data. Sometimes it bugs out. It might be the case for you since the gap is huge.
GSC is too complex for average website owners but not pro enough for advanced users. It’s just Google data, so be careful when analyzing it. Take it as an overview to see if you’re on the right track, but don’t treat it as detailed data like GA.