Dimensions – Authors, Category, Publication date no longer working

Thanks for the update @anntao. No problem to reopen that ticket, or to communicate from this latest topic. To troubleshoot this further, please share the following:

1. When you mention you did see such reports in GA4, can you share a screenshot of what you see, ensuring the “Most popular authors by pageviews” or “Top categories by pageviews”?do have values? You may need to change the reporting period back to a time when there were valid entries. I noted that you did share a screenshot above, from your Site Kit dashboard, but we’re looking to view what you see from within analytics.google.com.
2. Did you try using the GA4 Query Explorer to ensure your posts are appearing, with any of the dimensions added via Site Kit? Feel free to also share any findings using this tool, in particular whether you see any “Not set” values.

I can also confirm that every new WP post has an author, a category and a publication date. There’s also only 5 custom dimensions total in GA4 so not a quota issue.

I checked some of your recent posts and I can also confirm that I don’t see anything unusual, with what looks like valid author, publish date and category information.

Thanks

on 1. I can’t show you the data anymore since we archived those dimensions (as you recommended before) in order for Site Kit to recreate them (GA4 doesn’t keep the data)

on 2. I just tried the Query Explorer (it’s the same API call than Lookerstudio), results for the 3 dimensions are (not set)

Thanks for the update @anntao. Based on the net set value appearing in Looker Studio and the GA Query explorer, it sounds like it may be issue with Analytics reading the values as opposed to only what’s appearing in Site Kit only.

To test this further, can you visit a couple of pages on your site (while not logged in) and then check the event parameters as per this screenshot, using the tagassistant.google.com service? You’ll need to click on the page view event and scroll to the bottom. Ensure the URL you submit in tagasssistant.google.com is a recent post on your site, which does have a valid date, category and author. Please share what you see in a screenshot, or if you wish to share a recording you can do so, while demonstrating what you see at Analytics level for your custom definitions. This may be useful to check for whether there are any issues with the definitions.

Here’s the screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/HGKg7AV

Seeing custom dimensions set in GA4 but not firing with the pageview event according to GTM.

Appreciate the update @anntao. Given I also don’t see the events printed to your site for any posts I check, please follow the steps below:

1. Login to your live site from a Chrome browser incognito window.
2. Install and activate the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin.
3. Navigate to “Plugins > Health Check & Troubleshooting > Troubleshoot”.
4. From the same screen click on the “Available Plugins” tab at the top right and then click on the “Enable” option next to “Site Kit by Google“.
5. Visit your site once more, and share a screenshot of a text version of what you see when checking your sites source code as per this screenshot, demonstrating what is printed to your site between the <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) snippet added by Site Kit --> and <!-- End Google tag (gtag.js) snippet added by Site Kit --> comments. Note that when visiting your site, all plugins will be deactivated and a core is traditionally used, although I don’t see a core theme installed for your site. Troubleshooting mode only impacts you, so don’t worry about the appearance change for regular visitors.

The above will help us determine if another plugin is impacting the custom dimensions being added to your site. I can see some optimization plugins when checking your Site Health information, and it’s not uncommon for such plugins to impact standard behavior.

Another possibility is that consent mode configurations or other features that hook into your Google Analytics property are impacting the dimensions added by Site Kit. I can see you have Consent Mode active so we can perform some additional checks on this next, as I don’t see a mechanism active whereby I can grant consent when visiting your site. I don’t suspect this is impacting your custom dimensions, but we can perform some checks regardless in the event of a multi plugin or configuration conflict.

Let me know if you have any questions with the above.

Thanks James, here’s the screenshot of the code

Thanks for the update @anntao. The screenshot you shared is from the Consent Mode snippet added via Site Kit. I’m checking your site at present and I don’t see any Google Analytics snippet placed. Can you ensure you do have the option for Site Kit to place your Analytics snippet active, and let me know once done? I can then check your site once more.

As we didn’t receive a response I’ll mark this as resolved. Feel free to open a new support topic if you continue to encounter issues, or reopen this topic and we’d be happy to assist.