Google Analytics 4

Connecting Google Analytics 4 lets Ranqo read the sessions your GA4 property already records from AI assistants and search engines, with their engagement, conversions and landing pages. It needs no code on your site. The data appears in the Google Analytics view of the Traffic page.

What Ranqo reads#

Ranqo asks Google for read-only access to your Analytics data (the analytics.readonly scope), plus your Google account's email address, which the property picker shows so you can see which account you signed in with. It cannot change your GA4 settings, tags or data.

From the property you choose, each sync reads:

• Sessions, engaged sessions, conversions and revenue, per day and per source, for sessions whose source is an AI assistant or a search engine Ranqo recognises.
• The top landing pages for each of those sources, up to 10 per source, totalled over the whole period that sync reads rather than per day.

Sessions from any other source, such as social, email or Direct, are not read.

Before you connect#

• Use a Google account that can see the property. The picker lists only the GA4 properties the account has access to, and syncing needs at least Viewer access. If that access is removed later, syncs fail with a permission error.
• Only the account owner can connect. Team members see the data once it is connected, and can press Sync now. When a team member presses Connect, Continue with Google, Add Google Analytics or Reconnect, the browser leaves the dashboard for a page of raw text containing "Only the account owner can do this. Ask them to make this change." Go back and ask the owner. See Team.
• One property per brand. The number of properties you can connect across all your brands depends on your plan: 1 on Starter, 5 on Pro, Unlimited on Agency Growth and Unlimited on Agency Scale.

Connect a property#

1. Start from Integrations or Traffic

   In Integrations, press Connect on the Google Analytics 4 card. On the Traffic page you can also press Continue with Google on the Google Analytics card, or Add Google Analytics when Site Tracking is already delivering data.

2. Approve read-only access

   Google asks you to choose an account and approve access. If you decline, you return to the Traffic page with a note saying so, and nothing is saved.

3. Pick the property

   Select a Google Analytics property lists every GA4 property the account can see, with its account name and property ID. The first one in the list is selected when the page opens. Choose the property that collects data for this brand's website, then press Use this property.

4. Let the first sync run

   You land back on the Traffic page and the first sync starts. On a brand's first connection it fetches your plan's whole history window, so it takes longer than the daily syncs that follow. Until Google Analytics or Site Tracking has data in the last 30 days, the page keeps showing its connect cards, with the Google Analytics card reading Connected — first sync in progress (see When the Traffic page shows the connect cards). When the page already has data to show (for example from Site Tracking), the header of the Google Analytics view reads Syncing… while the first sync runs, and Sync stalled. Try Sync now. if the page stops waiting before it finishes.

Choosing the property#

• Pick the property whose web data is this brand's site. Ranqo reads the whole property, so a property that also collects another site's traffic mixes the two.
• The list is empty. The picker says no GA4 properties were found for the account. Start again and choose the Google account that has access to your site's Analytics.
• The picker says it could not find a pending connection. Google's approval is only held for a short time before you pick a property, and the same message appears when Ranqo could not list the account's properties. Start the connection again.

Reconnecting and switching property#

• Reconnect is the only way to change the connection. It appears on the banner the Traffic page shows when the connection has a problem, once the page has data to show (see If the connection stops working). A working connection has no control to switch property or Google account; to switch one, contact us.
• Check the selected property. The picker selects the first property in its list, not the one the brand is connected to, so pressing Use this property without checking can switch the brand to another property.
• Your plan's property limit applies. Saving the property checks your plan's property limit, and the brand's existing connection counts toward it. When your account already uses every property its plan allows, pressing Use this property, after Google's consent screen, is refused with "You have reached the limit for this feature on your current plan." On Starter, whose limit is 1, that refuses every reconnect once its brand is connected. To reconnect in that case, contact us.
• History is not fetched again. Once a connection has had a sync attempt, a reconnect or a switch keeps the days already synced, and the next sync reads only the last 3 days. After a switch, the older days keep the previous property's figures, and so does any source the new property does not report in the refreshed days. The Traffic page does not mark which property a day came from.

How syncing works#

• Every day, automatically. Ranqo syncs each connected property once a day at 01:15 UTC while your plan or trial is active and the connection is healthy. Each sync re-reads the last 3 days, because GA4 keeps revising recent data. A connection that shows a problem is skipped every day until it is fixed.
• Sync now. The button sits in the header of the Google Analytics view on the Traffic page, and nowhere else. It runs a sync straight away; if the sync fails, the reason appears next to the button. Team members can use it.
• Last synced, beside the button, is the time of the last sync attempt, including one that failed.

When the Traffic page shows the connect cards#

The Traffic page shows its two connect cards instead of any data whenever neither Google Analytics nor Site Tracking has data in the date range the page is showing. That range is the last 30 days when the page opens, and the connect screen has no date picker. If you pick a range that holds no data, the page switches to the connect cards; reload it to return to the last 30 days.

While the brand has a Google Analytics connection, the Google Analytics card on that screen reads Connected — first sync in progress and has no button, whatever the connection's state: also after the first sync has finished and found nothing, and while syncs are failing. The problem banner, Reconnect, Last synced and Sync now appear only once the page has data to show.

To tell the cases apart, open Integrations and look at the Google Analytics 4 card:

• Connected: the first sync is still running, or the property has no sessions from a recognised source in the last 30 days. See GA4 not syncing for what to check in GA4.
• Needs attention: the last sync failed. Manage on that card opens the Traffic page, which still shows the connect cards, without the reason or Reconnect. Contact us.

How much history#

The first sync fetches as many days as your plan allows. The Traffic page's date range is limited to the same window, for Google Analytics and Site Tracking alike.

Business is a custom plan with limits set together with you. Book a demo to shape one.

The history is fetched once, by the connection's first sync attempt. After that, every sync reads only the last 3 days, so none of these fetch older days from GA4:

• upgrading to a plan with a longer window, which only widens how far back the Traffic page can show;
• a first sync that failed;
• a reconnect or a switch to another property;
• fixing a connection that was failing: the days it missed stay empty, except those inside the last 3 days when it is fixed.

How AI and search sources are recognised#

GA4 records a source for every session: the campaign tag on the link when there is one, otherwise the referring site. Ranqo matches that source exactly against a list of known names and hostnames:

• AI assistants: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, and Meta AI.
• Search engines: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Yandex, Brave Search, Ecosia, and Baidu.

A session whose source does not match one exactly is not counted. Only the source is matched, not the medium, so paid clicks whose source is a search engine, such as google from Google Ads, count as search too.

The Sessions card's description reads "Visits from AI referrals", but its number counts AI assistants and search engines together, and so do Engaged Rate and Conversions. Sessions by source splits them, marking each source AI or SEARCH.

The Top landing pages card adds up the landing-page lists stored with each day and source in the date range, and each list holds a page's sessions over the whole period its sync read, not that one day. The same sessions are therefore counted once for each day in the range on which their source sent sessions, and the number beside a page can be several times what GA4 reports for it. For landing-page counts, use GA4's own landing page report.

What GA4 cannot see#

• AI crawlers. GA4 counts a visit by running its JavaScript tag in the browser. Crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot fetch your pages without running JavaScript, so GA4 never records them. Site Tracking captures them on your server.
• AI visits with no source. When an AI app opens a link without a campaign tag and without sending a referrer, GA4 files the session under Direct, and neither GA4 nor Ranqo can tell it came from an AI answer.
• Visitors whose browser blocks the tag. GA4 misses them. Site Tracking reports page requests from your server, so it does not depend on the browser.

If the connection stops working#

When a sync fails, the card on the Integrations page reads Needs attention. Once the Traffic page has data to show, a banner above it names the problem, shows the error message and offers Reconnect; with no data in the last 30 days, the page shows its connect cards instead (see When the Traffic page shows the connect cards). The banner title is one of two:

• Google Analytics sync error: how the automatic syncs (the first one after you connect, then the daily ones) record every failure, and how Sync now records any failure other than an expired authorization. A message mentioning invalid_grant or UNAUTHENTICATED means Google no longer accepts the saved authorization, for example because access was removed from the Google account: reconnect. A message mentioning PERMISSION_DENIED means the connected account does not have Viewer access to the property: grant it in GA4 under Admin, Property Access Management, or reconnect with an account that has access.
• Google Analytics connection expired: recorded only when Sync now finds that Google no longer accepts the saved authorization. Reconnect.

While a connection shows either problem, daily syncs skip it. A successful Sync now or a reconnect clears the problem and resumes them, and the days missed in between are not fetched beyond the last 3. On Starter a reconnect is refused by the plan's property limit (see Reconnecting and switching property). More causes and fixes are in GA4 not syncing.

Disconnecting#

No one can disconnect Google Analytics from the dashboard, the account owner included. To stop Ranqo reading your property, remove Ranqo's access in your Google Account's third-party connections. The next daily sync then fails, the connection shows as a Google Analytics sync error (the Integrations card reads Needs attention), and daily syncs stop. Sessions already synced stay on the Traffic page. To have the connection removed from Ranqo, contact us.

Related#