Google Analytics Audit Test #

103

Unique IDs in Pages

Why It Matters:

Critical to ensuring that your data is usable for analysis and understanding visitors behavior on your site.

Industries:

All

Checks For:

Utility

How powerful is your current implementation?

Insight Category:

Behavior

Can you tell what visitors are doing?

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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 evaluates whether your Google Analytics property is capturing page paths or URLs that include unique or dynamic IDs, such as:

  • User IDs
  • Session tokens
  • Product SKUs in query strings
  • Personal identifiers (e.g., email addresses or hashes)

These dynamic values cause high cardinality in your data, leading to:

  • Bloated or fragmented reports
  • Increased sampling in Google Analytics and BigQuery
  • Slower queries and harder-to-use dashboards
  • Potential privacy compliance risks (if personal data is exposed)

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Google Analytics audit test results.

How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • In Google Analytics > Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens, view Page path + query string.
    • Scan for dynamic segments (e.g., /checkout/abc123, /user/7890/profile)
  • In Explore, group by Page path + query string, and use filters or wildcards to look for paths with:
    • Long alphanumeric strings
    • GUIDs, IDs, or unusual character patterns

Advanced QA

  • In BigQuery, run a regex to find patterns like:
    SELECT page_path, COUNT(*) as count
    FROM `your_dataset.events_*`
    WHERE REGEXP_CONTAINS(page_path, r'/[A-Za-z0-9]{10,}')
    GROUP BY page_path
    ORDER BY count DESC

Automated, Free Audit

Run our Instant Audit to surface the worst offenders.

Or hire a pro to clean up your path structure.

How To Fix

  • Strip or normalize dynamic values from page paths before sending them to Google Analytics:
    • Use GTM variables or custom JavaScript to remove IDs from the page_path
    • On SPAs or server-side setups, normalize paths before sending to Google Analytics
  • If dynamic content must be retained, use custom dimensions (e.g., user type, product category) instead of embedding dynamic values in URLs
  • In Google Analytics Admin > Data Settings > Unwanted Query Parameters, exclude parameters like user_id, session, token, etc.
  • Never pass personally identifiable information (PII) in URLs
  • Hire a pro to implement safe, scalable, and privacy-compliant page path tracking.

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!

Hire a Google Analytics Consultant
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