---
title: "Google Analytics"
description: "Google Analytics is a tool for analysing website traffic. Learn the GA4 event model, key metrics and how the data drives marketing decisions."
url: "https://nodea.io/en/glossary/google-analytics"
lang: "en"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---

# Google Analytics

> Google Analytics is a free tool for analysing website traffic that gathers data on visitors, traffic sources and user behaviour, supporting marketing decisions and conversion optimisation.

**Google Analytics** is Google's free analytics tool that collects and presents data about traffic to a website. It helps you understand where visitors come from, how they move through the site, which content draws attention, and which actions lead to a [conversion](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/conversion). It is one of the pillars of data-driven marketing decisions.

## How Google Analytics works

A tracking snippet (today delivered as a Google tag) is placed on the site; on every visit it records events and sends them to Google's servers. The current version, **GA4**, bases its analytics on an event model — each page view, click or scroll is a separate event, giving a more flexible picture of behaviour than the old session-based model.

The most important metrics include:

- **Users and sessions** — the number of visitors and their visits;
- **Traffic sources** — organic, paid, direct, social and referral;
- **Engagement** — time on site, number of events, engagement rate;
- **Conversions** — defined business goals, such as a purchase or form submission.

## Practical application

Marketers use Google Analytics to gauge campaign effectiveness, compare acquisition channels and study which pages sell best. Combined with [attribution](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/attribution) models, the tool helps establish which touchpoints actually contribute to a sale.

Analytics data is often paired with [Google Search Console](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/google-search-console) to connect a picture of search visibility with on-site behaviour. Together they cover the full journey from a Google query to conversion, which makes them an inseparable duo in marketing analytics. When deploying the tool, it is worth ensuring GDPR compliance — data anonymisation, a cookie consent banner and a clear privacy policy — since Analytics processes information about visitors.

### How does Google Analytics differ from Google Search Console?

Google Analytics analyses user behaviour on the site — where they came from, what they do and what converts. Google Search Console shows how the site performs in Google search: which queries it appears for, its CTR, and whether there are indexing problems. The tools complement each other.

### What is GA4?

GA4 (Google Analytics 4) is the current version of the tool, which replaced Universal Analytics. It is built on an event-based model rather than sessions, connects app and web data more cleanly, and puts a stronger emphasis on privacy and machine-learning analysis.

## Related

- [Google Search Console](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/google-search-console)
- [Conversion](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/conversion)
- [Bounce rate](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/bounce-rate)
- [KPI](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/kpi)
- [Attribution](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/attribution)

---

Languages: [pl](https://nodea.pl/pl/slownik-pojec/google-analytics.md)  
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