Site Kit toolbar shows completely different number to Google Analytics 4

Thanks for reaching out @myle2812, and sharing details of what you’re seeing between the Site Kit dashboard, the Site Kit admin bar feature, and the Google Analytics dashboard.

As a while, the information that Site Kit displays within the dashboard is pulled from a users Google Analytics account directly, for that reason the numbers should be similar, although allowing for some changes based on the API reporting cut off times compared to what you see from analytics.google.com.

As I can’t be sure what’s happening in your case at this time, to troubleshoot your issue further, please share the following:

1. Your Site Health information. You can use this form to share privately if preferred.??
2. A recording of what you see when visiting that page on your site, opening the Site Kit admin toolbar tab, and clicking on the “More details” link. You can use a service such as Loom or RecordIt to share a screen recording, while using the same form previously used to share this privately.?
3. A screenshot of any browser console errors that appear while viewing that page and displaying stats from the admin toolbar. An alternative to a screenshot is to include this in the recording suggested above, by opening your browsers developer tools.

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

Hi James,

Thanks for the prompt response, I have submitted the form. Let me know if theres anything else!

Thanks for the update @myle2812. Based on the recording, it looks like Site Kit is not locating this specific page from your Google Analytics account. I noticed that when you click on the “More details” link, you are shown details from what looks like your overall site, and not this specific page. This may also be why you can’t locate this page via the search bar.

To troubleshoot this further, please share the following:

1. Did you make changes to your sites permalinks recently, or at some stage? Whether you did or not, you may wish to visit your Permalinks settings in order to sync your .htaccess file (Settings > Permalinks).
2. Can you share a screenshot or recording of what you see when clicking on the link for that specific page within the Top content table, as highlighted in this screenshot? You can share privately if preferred, using the same form.

Based on your very useful insights, what I suspect is happening is that your WPML added /en-gb path is making modifications to the standard WordPress path for your blog posts, which is why Site Kit can’t locate some posts to display Analytics stats.

Note also that while you may not be able to view Analytics stats on specific posts due to this, using the admin toolbar, the data you see from analytics.google.com should have correct data.

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

Hi James, thanks for looking into this. I’m checking with my team on the first question, but for the second one, if I click on the title, it will direct me to the report on GA4, and if I click on the URL, it will direct me to the actual blog post (URL as shown in the screenshot).

Thanks for the update @myle2812. When you click on the link that brings you to a report for that URL from analytics.google.com, can you confirm there is data?

What I suspect is happening is your WPML configurations are changing your page paths, resulting in Site Kit not locating the page to display reports on. I think we will be able to check this further with a little more troubleshooting. To do so, can you check the following, which should point to the Detailed Pages Stats for one of your pages (the one used in your screenshots).

URL 1 (without the en-gb path). I suspect you will be able to view Detailed Page Stats using this link: https://yoursite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=googlesitekit-dashboard&permaLink=https%3A%2F%2Fyoursite.com%2Fresources%2Fai-and-accountancy-is-the-sector-ready%2F

URL 2 (using the en-gb path). This is the direct link which I believe is not working if clicking from the admin toolbar. I suspect you won’t be able to view the Detailed Page Stats using this link: https://yoursite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=googlesitekit-dashboard&permaLink=https%3A%2F%2Fyoursite.com%2Fresources%2Fai-and-accountancy-is-the-sector-ready%2F

Can you check both URLs above while logged into your site. Please be sure to replace the yoursite reference in the above with your own site URL (this appears twice in each URL).

If you can access the detailed page stats for the first URL, then this does indicate an issue with your permalinks based on your WPML configuration.

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

Hi James,

When clicking on the link that directs to GA4, yes I can confirm that there is data like in this screenshot. The data aligns with Site Kit Top Content report (just not the top dropdown toolbar as we’ve seen).

When troubleshooting, I’ve included the correct domain at all places required:

URL 1: Got an error

URL 2: Can see data – so actually the en-gb one works. However, the number is similar to what the top dropdown toolbar is which is massively lower than what we see on the Overview report / on GA4.

Thanks!

Thanks for the update @myle2812, very useful to see what you’re encountering with these screenshots.

Based on your second screenshot, can you click on the “Source: Analytics” link on this same page, and from there let me know what you see from analytics.google.com for this page? Feel free to share a screenshot or recording if you wish.

Hi – yes I can see data here.

Is this in any case because of our Analytics being set up in one single data stream (we don’t separate one for en-gb)?

Thanks for the additional insights. It looks like what’s happening is similar to what’s described in the below GitHub issue:
https://github.com/google/site-kit-wp/issues/2862

As per your screenshots, there are no detailed page stats available for blog pages with your default URL (without the en-gb reference). This is due to the default URL being modified by your language plugin (ie. As per the notice in this screenshot it’s not part of your site, as it’s moved to a location that includes the en-gb reference)

To summarize, statistics are collected for your site overall and are available from analytics.google.com. Due to your language plugin configuration, Site Kit won’t always at present location these pages for specific URL reporting within the plugin, to show you this data within the “Detailed page stats” page or the admin toolbar. As per your latest screenshot, data is shown from analytics.google.com.

Note also that with regards the 10 visitors you mentioned and this being inaccurate for that URL, this is a Search Console metric, and not Google Analytics.

I’ll add your case to the existing GitHub issue while also testing our WPML to see can I encounter the same. Unfortunately there is no overall workaround for your issue given the various configurations that can be applied to site URLs using language plugins, as you’ll see noted in the related GitHub issue. For the time being you won’t be able to view data for some pages using the Site Kit admin toolbar feature without modifying your language plugin configuration. You can do so from analytics.google.com, while resting assured that data is being collected for this and other URLs.

I’ll also let you know here if I have an update from my WPML testing.

Thanks so much for looking into it! So in summary, data in the Site Kit drop-down bar is inaccurate and we should refer to GA4 data instead – is that accurate?

Another thing I’ve noticed is for Google Search Console on the dashboard here Site Kit says there are 135K total impressions and 7.4K total clicks, but when I checked in Console itself, the total clicks seem correct but not the total impressions in the same time range (last 28 days). Even when I summed the amount of impressions throughout Web, Image, Video and News, in total it’s only up to around 75K – so I wonder what caused such a big discrepancy?

Thanks!

No problem, happy to assist. And thank you also for reporting this.

So in summary, data in the Site Kit drop-down bar is inaccurate and we should refer to GA4 data instead – is that accurate?

I suspect that the the Search Console data you see within the Site Kit admin toolbar feature should be accurate (impressions and clicks), although I don’t have a site set up to confirm issues with both Analytics metrics. It’s possible they are correct, and that the issue is more to do with details on the detailed page summary within the Site Kit dashboard (where the data won’t be correct). I can’t be sure at this point. As suggested however, the data will be correct for individual pages from analytics.google.com, while the overall page stats on the Site Kit dashboard should be correct.

I added your case to the related GitHub issue for the team to review, although unfortunately I don’t have a timeframe on when or if this will be actioned. There are a multiple ways that a language or other plugins can modify standard page and post URLs, which makes it difficult to account for when it comes to pulling up that page within the Site Kit dashboard as it’s not always recognized as a valid WordPress page or post URL.

Another thing I’ve noticed is for Google Search Console on the dashboard?here?Site Kit says there are 135K total impressions and 7.4K total clicks, but when I checked in Console itself, the total clicks seem correct but not the?total impressions?in the same time range (last 28 days). Even when I summed the amount of impressions throughout Web, Image, Video and News, in total it’s only up to around 75K – so I wonder what caused such a big discrepancy?

We may need to check this further. Can you share a recording of this from the Site Kit dashboard, and then what you see when clicking on the “Source: Search Console” link? I ask as this information shown within the Site Kit dashboard is pulled directly from a users Search Console account. We need to see what’s occurring or try to determine why this mismatch is occurring.

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

Thanks James!

I have submitted a recording of what I can see in Google Search Console. Strangely if theres a filter it seems like the data matches, but without it the number of impressions massively reduced.

Thanks for sharing @myle2812.

From checking the recording you kindly shared, this may be due to the Search Console property you selected being a domain type property. I reviewed your previous Site Health information response and I noticed the connected property as search_console_property: sc-domain:yourdomain.com

This may also be the reason why you do see data when switching properties within Search Console, as users can have various versions of their site added as individual properties (www version, non www version, http/http etc). Site Kit will display data based on the connected property, which in your case seems to be a domain type property.

You can change the Search Console property that Site Kit is connected to at any stage, with the instructions for doing so found here.