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Set up Analytics for a website (Universal Analytics)
This article is for anyone who wants to set up Analytics (using a Universal Analytics property) on a new website. Universal Analytics is the earlier version of Analytics and only supports web measurement. If you need a "UA- " Tracking ID, follow the instructions in this article.
Follow the instructions below carefully. Be sure to click Show advanced options, then turn on the switch for Create a Universal Analytics property, as shown below. If you don't do this, you will create a Google Analytics 4 property instead.
Create an Analytics account
Your first step is to set up an Analytics account, unless you already have one. Skip to creating a property unless you want to create a separate account for this website. For example, you might want to create another account if this website belongs to a separate business.
- In Admin, in the Account column, click Create Account.
- Provide an account name. Configure the data-sharing settings to control which data you share with Google.
- Click Next to add the first property to the account.
Create a property
- Are you continuing from "Create an Analytics account", above? If so, skip to step 2. Otherwise,
- In Admin, look at the Account column to make sure that you've selected the right account. Then, in the Property column, click Create Property.
- Enter a name for the property (e.g. "My Business, Inc website") and select the reporting time zone and currency. If a visitor comes to your website on a Tuesday in their time zone, but it's Monday in your time zone, the visit is recorded as having occurred on Monday.
- If you choose a time zone that honors Daylight Savings Time, Analytics automatically adjusts for time changes. Use Greenwich Mean Time if you don't want to adjust for Daylight Savings Time.
- Changing the time zone only affects data going forward. If you change the time zone for an existing property, you may see a flat spot or a spike in your data, caused by the time shift forwards or backwards, respectively. Report data may refer to the old time zone for a short period after you update your settings, until Analytics servers have processed the change.
- Click Show advanced options (below the property-setup fields).
- Turn on the switch for Create a Universal Analytics property.
- Enter the website URL. Select the protocol (http or https).
Most domain hosts support only UTF-8 characters in URLs. Use either UTF-8 characters or punycode for symbols and any non-UTF-8 characters (including Cyrillic characters) in your domain name. Try a punycode converter for help with this. - At this point, choose to create
- Both a Google Analytics 4 property and a Universal Analytics property. This option
- Sets up a parallel Google Analytics 4 property that collects data alongside your Universal Analytics property. Once you add the tag for the Google Analytics 4 property to your site, data will be sent to both properties. You can switch back and forth between properties using the property selector or Admin screen.
- Establishes a connection between the two properties that allows you to migrate configuration settings from your Universal Analytics property to your Google Analytics 4 property later on.How to identify each property: If you named your property "Example" in step 2, your Universal Analytics property will be named "Example (UA-1234567)" and your Google Analytics 4 property will be named "Example - GA4 (98765432)".
- Only a Universal Analytics property. Choose this option if you only want a Universal Analytics property.If you need a "UA-" tracking ID, choose this option.
- Both a Google Analytics 4 property and a Universal Analytics property. This option
- Click Next and provide information about your business.
- Click Create.
Accept the Analytics Terms of Service and the Data Processing Amendment if prompted, and click Finish.
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