Google Analytics Audit Test #

88

No Self Referrals

Why It Matters:

Critical to understanding where your traffic is coming from and assigning appropriate credit.

Industries:

All

Checks For:

Accuracy

How accurate is your recent data?

Insight Category:

Attribution

Can you tell which marketing efforts are working?

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Background

A GA4 audit is essential for uncovering missing insights—key data points that organizations don't yet know and can act upon. A well-done audit evaluates both behavioral tracking and traffic attribution, ensuring each is accurate and useful. It also assesses whether the data collected truly supports business decisions and reporting.

Test Detail

This test checks whether your own domain is appearing as a referrer in your Google Analytics reports.

Self-referrals usually happen when sessions are broken—due to:

  • missing Google Analytics code on a page,
  • cross-domain tracking not being set up properly,
  • or user journeys that include third-party tools or redirects that drop Google Analytics cookies.

When this happens, the original attribution is lost and replaced with “referral” from your own site.

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In Google Analytics, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition.
  • Look at the Session source/medium and check for entries like:
    • yourdomain.com / referral
    • Variations of your domain (e.g., with or without “www”, subdomains)
  • Use Explore or BigQuery to review how many conversions or sessions are tied to your own domain.
  • Seeing your own domain showing up as a traffic source? That’s a self-referral issue.

Automated, Free Audit

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How To Fix

  • Go to Admin > Data Streams > [your stream] > More tagging settings > List unwanted referrals.
  • Add your domain (and any variations or subdomains) to the exclusion list.
  • Ensure Google Analytics (or Google Tag Manager) is installed on every page—including confirmation pages, subdomains, and microsites.
  • If your site involves cross-domain flows (e.g., shop.yoursite.com to www.yoursite.com), configure cross-domain tracking in Google Tag Manager or with Google Analytics "Configure your domains" setting under Tagging Settings.
  • Hire a pro to properly configure referral exclusions, cross-domain tracking, and full-path analytics integrity.

Tips from a Google Analytics Consultant

Focus on Insights

Every Google Analytics audit should result in a plan for more insights.

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An insight is:

  • something you don't know
  • and can act on to improve performance

The Goal

Identify and remove insight blockers. Don't get tempted to track things you can't act on!

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