Michał Tyrolski

Michał Tyrolski

Senior AI Consultant at EY / Independent Researcher.

Google Analytics Setup Guide

Google Analytics Setup Guide

This repository comes with built-in support for Google Analytics. Follow this guide to set up Google Analytics tracking for your website.

Overview

The site supports three different Google Analytics implementations:

  • Google Analytics 4 (GA4) - Recommended for new websites
  • Universal Analytics - Legacy version (sunset on July 1, 2023)
  • Classic Google Analytics - Older legacy version

We recommend using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as it’s the current version supported by Google.

Step 1: Create a Google Analytics Account

  1. Go to Google Analytics
  2. Sign in with your Google account
  3. Click Start measuring or Admin (gear icon)
  4. Create an account:
    • Enter an Account Name (e.g., “Personal Website”)
    • Configure account data sharing settings
    • Click Next

Step 2: Set Up a Property

  1. Enter a Property Name (e.g., “My GitHub Pages Site”)
  2. Select your Reporting Time Zone
  3. Select your Currency
  4. Click Next

Step 3: Configure Property Details

  1. Select your business category and size
  2. Choose how you plan to use Google Analytics
  3. Click Create
  4. Accept the Terms of Service

Step 4: Set Up Data Stream

  1. Choose Web as your platform
  2. Enter your website URL: https://[your-github-username].github.io
    • For example: https://mtyrolski.github.io
  3. Enter a Stream name (e.g., “GitHub Pages Site”)
  4. Click Create stream

Step 5: Get Your Measurement ID

After creating the data stream, you’ll see your Measurement ID (also called Tracking ID). It looks like:

  • GA4 format: G-XXXXXXXXXX (starts with “G-“)
  • Universal Analytics format: UA-XXXXXXXXX-X (starts with “UA-“)

Copy this ID - you’ll need it for the next step.

Step 6: Configure Your Jekyll Site

  1. Open the _config.yml file in your repository
  2. Find the analytics section (around line 100-105):
# Analytics
analytics:
  provider               : "false"
  google:
    tracking_id          :
  1. Update it with your Google Analytics settings:

For Google Analytics 4 (Recommended):

# Analytics
analytics:
  provider               : "google-analytics-4"
  google:
    tracking_id          : "G-XXXXXXXXXX"

For Universal Analytics (Legacy):

# Analytics
analytics:
  provider               : "google-universal"
  google:
    tracking_id          : "UA-XXXXXXXXX-X"

For Classic Google Analytics (Legacy):

# Analytics
analytics:
  provider               : "google"
  google:
    tracking_id          : "UA-XXXXXXXXX-X"
  1. Replace G-XXXXXXXXXX (or UA-XXXXXXXXX-X) with your actual Measurement ID
  2. Save the file

Step 7: Commit and Deploy

  1. Commit your changes:
    git add _config.yml
git commit -m "Add Google Analytics tracking"
git push
  2. GitHub Pages will automatically rebuild your site (this may take a few minutes)

Step 8: Verify Installation

  1. Visit your website: https://[your-github-username].github.io
  2. Open your browser’s Developer Tools (F12)
  3. Go to the Network tab
  4. Refresh the page
  5. Look for requests to:
    • googletagmanager.com (for GA4)
    • google-analytics.com (for Universal/Classic)
  6. In Google Analytics:
    • Go to Reports → Realtime
    • You should see your visit appear within a few seconds

Disabling Analytics on Specific Pages

If you want to disable analytics tracking on specific pages, add this to the page’s front matter:

---
title: "My Page"
analytics: false
---

Troubleshooting

Analytics not working?

  1. Check your tracking ID format:
    • GA4 IDs start with G-
    • Universal Analytics IDs start with UA-
    • Make sure you’re using the correct provider for your ID format
  2. Verify the configuration:
    • Open _config.yml and ensure:
      • The provider is NOT set to "false"
      • The tracking_id is properly formatted with quotes
      • There are no extra spaces or typos
  3. Check if the site has rebuilt:
    • Go to your repository on GitHub
    • Click on Actions tab
    • Check if the latest deployment succeeded (green checkmark)
  4. Verify the analytics code is included:
    • View the page source of your website
    • Search for gtag (GA4) or google-analytics.com (Universal)
    • The tracking code should be present in the HTML
  5. Browser extensions:
    • Ad blockers and privacy extensions may block Google Analytics
    • Try testing in an incognito/private window
    • Or temporarily disable extensions
  6. Clear your browser cache:
    • Your browser might be showing a cached version of the site
    • Hard refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac)

Data not showing in Google Analytics?

  • It can take 24-48 hours for data to appear in standard reports
  • Check Realtime reports for immediate verification
  • Make sure your site has actual visitors (visit it yourself!)

Additional Features

Event Tracking

Google Analytics 4 automatically tracks many events. To track custom events, you can use JavaScript in your pages:

gtag('event', 'event_name', {
  'event_category': 'category',
  'event_label': 'label',
  'value': 1
});

Enhanced Measurement

In your GA4 property settings, you can enable enhanced measurement for:

  • Page views
  • Scrolls
  • Outbound clicks
  • Site search
  • Video engagement
  • File downloads

To enable these:

  1. Go to Admin → Data Streams
  2. Click on your web stream
  3. Toggle Enhanced measurement on
  4. Click the gear icon to customize which events to track

Privacy Considerations

When using Google Analytics, consider:

  1. Add a Privacy Policy: Inform visitors about your use of analytics
  2. Cookie Consent: Consider implementing a cookie consent banner for GDPR compliance
  3. IP Anonymization: GA4 anonymizes IP addresses by default
  4. Data Retention: Configure data retention settings in Google Analytics Admin

Resources

Support

If you encounter issues:

  1. Check the troubleshooting section above
  2. Review the Google Analytics Help Center
  3. Open an issue in the repository with details about your problem