Web Services

GA4 Terminology

Google analytics uses specific terms to describe the actions take across websites. These definitions are adapted or copied directly from Google Help.

  • Custom dimension: lets you see the information you collected from an event parameter. For example, if you set up a 'value' event parameter, you could create a custom metric called 'Value' that allows you to see each value assigned to the event parameter. Custom dimensions are managed within the Admin panel of Google Analytics.
  • Dashboard: a collection of widgets that give you an overview of the reports and metrics you care about most.
  • Events: defined actions triggered by user interactions.
    • Automatically collected: collected by default when you set up Google Analytics on your website.
    • Custom: defined by Google Analytics admins to track specific types of interactions based on defined criteria. These allow you to specify how you want to understand users on your sites.
    • Key events: previously known as conversions. Specific events that track important metrics for your unit. For fundraising units, this may be a donation. Academic units may wish to track visits or information requests.
  • Event Parameter: provide more information about the action that took place for each event. For example, you could measure whether the action was successful, when the event occurred, or choices users made during the interaction.
  • Explore: a collection of advanced techniques that go beyond standard reports to help you uncover deeper insights about your customers' behavior. Read more from Google.
  • Realtime: shows you each triggered event and the number of times each event was triggered in the last 30 minutes by the users on your website or app.
  • Reports: raw data for user data on the website over a customizable period of time.
  • Retention: measurement of how many users return to your site over a given period of time.
  • Traffic Source: A representation of the publisher or inventory source from which traffic originated. For example, users who return to your website from Google Search show as "google" in the Session source dimension. Ex. google, youtube, email, etc.