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Understanding Duplicate Path Tracking in Google Analytics (4)
Hey there, I’m trying to get my head around GA4 and noticed something peculiar. It looks like it’s showing some of my pages twice – once with the top level domain and once without. What’s up with that? Do you guys know?
For instance, when I go under “Engagement” / “Pages and Screens” and click on “Page path and screen class”, I see duplication. There are some pages that appear twice and even their page views etc. are different. Check out this screenshot:
(P.S. – I’ve swapped out my original URL with example.com for this question.)
I’ve been hunting for some explanation but haven’t found any yet. Any GA4 experts out there who could help a fellow out?
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2 Replies
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The duplication you’re seeing is likely a result of how page paths are being captured in GA4. When your data gets sent to GA4, the ‘page_location’ parameter effectively becomes the full URL, including the scheme (HTTP/HTTPS), the domain, and the page path. However, the ‘page_path’ parameter should ideally only include the URI. If your tracking snippet is not configured correctly, it might cause the full URL to be captured for both ‘page_location’ and ‘page_path’, leading to duplicate entries.
Additionally, another cause could be separate tags firing for the same page view – one capturing the domain and the other not. This could be due to multiple instances of GA4 installed on your website either manually or through Google Tag Manager.
To solve this, you need to review your event tagging setup for page views to ensure it’s only capturing the desired information and not duplicating tags. For assistance with this, you may wish to bring a web developer or a digital analytics professional on board who has expertise in GA4 implementation and troubleshooting.
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This situation may be taking place due to several reasons. One of them could be the way your website is set up. For instance, your site might have scripts causing it to track each page twice – once with the top domain, once without. It could also be related to a setting in your GA4 setup where it’s been told to track pages in two different ways. Another possible explanation is that some visitors get to your website by typing the domain, while others arrive via a link that includes the www prefix. This would generate different entries on GA4. The best way to solve this would be revisiting your GA4 configuration settings to remove any duplications and consistency in link sharing. Also, consider talking to a web developer who understands GA4 to help you identify and fix the issue.
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