How to display Full Referrer URL in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)? [closed]

Question

In the past, with older Google Analytics accounts and properties I was able to use a Custom Report on a View to show a table of Full Referral URLs.

But with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) I can no longer have Views, so I'm at a loss how I can show Full Referral URLs? I can show the Referral Source (domain name only) but I'd prefer to see the full Referral Path.

Any ideas how I can go about this?

Thank you.

Grimsley

Answer 1

The closest I can find is to use the Explore tab to create a new Exploration with the following settings:

Variables

• Dimensions: Page referrer
• Metrics: Active users

Tab Settings

• rows: Page referrer
• show rows: 500 (optional)
• values: Active users
• cell type: Heat map (optional)
• filters: (exclude any URL patterns here)

Then minimize the Variables and Settings panels.

This will give you a long table of full referrer URLs along with the number of users that came from there. In my case, most are domain names, but a handful are full URLs pointing to a page.

It remains to be seen if this can be done more easily or more comprehensively.

Grimsley

This doesn't work. I tried in two different GA4 properties, "dimensions > page referrer" does not import, the report doesn't form. – Fiche

@Fiche but I literally posted a screenshot of it working. So you must be doing something wrong. – Grimsley

It is the JS in the GA interface. It does not work when the search bar is used to filter out the dimensions to import Page Referrer. It works if you do not use the search bar to filter it, but instead you manually go through the full list until you find Page Referrer. Possibly related to me living in Brazil, might be worth adding a note to the post because even people in rural England have weak internet signal so I assume this may be a common problem. – Fiche

I find that using 'New users' instead of 'Active users' filters out self-referral from the list. – Veery

@MattSephton My Page Referrer column is empty for most of the traffic, any ideas? – Ikey

You now need to add 'Active users' to Metrics – Ophthalmic

To filter out all top-level domains with emptyish path components, add a filter for "matches regex" and enter ^https?:\/\/[^\/]+\/.+$. – Bryan

That's cool, I don't need a way to duplicate Exploration settings though so I'll probably have to do this for every website manually. – Kinetics

Answer 2

It's a bit easier now. This can be achieved OOTB by modifying Primary Dimensions.
For example on a custom report for traffic acquisitions....

• On the right sidebar, under Report Data, click on Dimensions
• Remove Event name or remove it from being default.
• Click Add Dimension, select "Page referrer", and set it as default.
• Click Apply and save your current report

You should now see Full URL page locations under this custom report.

Tip - Double-click any full URL you see listed, then right-click and open in a new tab. This helps in getting to that page.

Hope this helps others who find this a bit of a mystery.

Fasciculus