With the new Google Analytics 4 being imposed on us from next year, it’s important for all users of the existing Google “Universal Analytics” to set up the new system urgently. Helpful ‘How To’ guides are being published all the time, and one source that I’ve been following for a while is Analytics Mania, run by Julius Fedorovicius in Lithuania. His recent How to set up Google Analytics 4 property + 5 things you must do NOW video is a great watch for anyone needing a 5-minute step-by-step guide to installing Google Analytics 4; this is followed – as the title says – by a guide to some additional setup essentials. These are:
- Increasing the ‘Data Retention’ default to 14 months, allowing analysis of longer periods
- Configuring the domains if there are multiple websites on same property
- Excluding internal traffic from company sites
- Excluding websites not wanted in referrals in traffic reports, such as payment gateways
- Increasing the default session timeout from 30 minutes to a few hours, and the timer for engaged sessions from 10 seconds to a longer period