Google Analytics – how GA4 works for SEO analysis

Definition

Google Analytics is Google's free analytics tool for measuring web traffic, user behaviour and conversions – and a standard tool in every serious SEO workflow.

What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?

Google Analytics 4 is the current version of Google's analytics tool and the successor to Universal Analytics (GA3), which stopped collecting data in July 2023 (Analytics 360 in July 2024). Unlike the session-based model in UA, GA4 is built around an event-based data model, which allows more flexible and precise tracking of how users actually behave on a website or in an app.

The tool is free, and most websites use it to understand traffic sources, user behaviour, conversions and content performance.

What does Google Analytics measure?

GA4 collects and presents data in several dimensions, including:

• Traffic sources: Where visitors come from – organic search, direct, paid advertising, social media, email, referral
• Engagement: Engaged sessions and engagement rate (the opposite of bounce rate, which is also available in GA4), time on page, scroll depth, clicks
• Key events: The events that matter to the business, such as form submissions, purchases and CTA clicks (previously called conversions)
• Audience: Device, country, city, language, new vs returning visitors
• Content performance: Which pages generate the most traffic, the most time on page and the most conversions

GA4 and SEO – what you can actually read from it

Google Analytics is not an SEO tool in itself – it measures what happens after the click, not what happens in the search engine. For ranking data and search volume, you need a tool such as Google Search Console.

GA4 does, however, give invaluable insight for SEO work:

• Landing pages from organic search: Which pages turn traffic into engagement
• Engagement metrics: Whether organic visitors actually stay and interact – or leave straight away
• Impact on conversions: How SEO traffic contributes to forms, purchases and contact enquiries
• Content gaps: Pages with high traffic but low engagement point to a mismatch with search intent

Connecting GA4 with Google Search Console

By linking GA4 to Google Search Console (GSC), you get a more complete picture: GSC shows which search terms lead to clicks, and GA4 shows what visitors do afterwards. The combination is standard practice in serious SEO projects.

GA4 and AEO

As AI answers (AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity) take more of the clicks, GA4 presents a challenge: organic traffic for informational searches falls, without that being a sign of SEO failure. What changes is how people search, not necessarily how visible the brand is. GA4 measures clicks, not AI citations – so it is increasingly important to complement it with AEO-specific measurement tools, and to ask new customers "How did you find us?" and keep track of the answers.