I would like to know more about GA4 and how it good to as compared to the previous version. please share your knowledge.
GA4 is a game-changer for SEO! You can track user engagement beyond pageviews, helping you optimize content for real user behavior. Plus, it integrates better with Google Ads for even stronger campaigns.
Hey! GA4 is quite different from the old Universal Analytics. Instead of tracking sessions, it focuses more on user events, which helps you see how people interact across both websites and apps. It’s also designed with privacy in mind, so it’s better for dealing with new data regulations. One cool thing is the machine learning predictions that can help you forecast user behavior. Plus, it’s better at tracking users across different devices. It can take a bit of time to learn, but once you get it, the insights are really useful!
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Somehow, i dont think these sentences go together as well as you think they might 
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Probably its biggest advantage over Univeral Analytics is that it’s still supported, so you can actually still use it.
Good point! It’s definitely a balancing act. I think when they mention privacy, they’re likely referring to anonymized data or data that requires explicit user consent. Tracking across devices and forecasting behavior can still be done in a privacy-friendly way with the right safeguards, like encryption or edge computing. But yeah, combining those statements without context can make it sound a bit contradictory! The implementation is key.
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What advantages does GA4 offer in terms of tracking user behavior and event data?
Honestly, I hate using GA4 and have switched to using matomo analytics on all my sites
Welcome to the forums, @dillonvb .
Why is that? Can you explain the problem or difficulty?
What is the advantage of matomo? Why do you prefer it?
This is a place for discussion, and it’s much more helpful to other members to have some detailed information, rather than just a passing comment.
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Actually, there may be a big problem with all the analytic services that Google offers: they all send visitor data to a Google server. With GA4, that’s done without cookies, but I’m sure that without visitor consent, the European Union (i.e. the European Commission) will forbid that as well. And the US will probably follow that example.
67% of American site visitors do not want their data being used for commercial purposes: https://www.emarketer.com/content/majority-of-us-adults-will-turn-off-cookies-manage-privacy-online.
So, the good old AWStats or Webalizer might be more reliable and are certainly more futureproof in terms of privacy legislation: they do not send data to other servers.
If you need more or better visitor statistics than those two offer, Matomo (hat tip @dillonvb ) might be a better choice than GA4. It has a free version which can be installed on your own server, with its own local database. No consent is needed.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics, designed to provide a more user-centric measurement across websites and apps. Unlike Universal Analytics, GA4 focuses on events (rather than sessions) to track user interactions, offering enhanced insights on the entire customer journey. It uses AI-driven insights, deeper integration with Google Ads, and cross-device tracking, making it a powerful tool for understanding user behavior and engagement. GA4 also emphasizes privacy, with options for more robust data controls and flexible event tracking to adapt to future privacy regulations.