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Do I Put Google Analytics Code on Every Page?

Cody Schneider•

Putting the Google Analytics tracking code on every page of your website is the universally correct approach for getting accurate data. Without it, you’ll have gaping holes in your analytics, making it impossible to understand how users truly navigate your site. This guide covers why it’s necessary, how to implement it correctly, and how to verify everything is working.

Why Every Page Needs the Google Analytics Code

To understand the "why," you need to grasp how Google Analytics measures a "session." A session is a group of user interactions with your website that take place within a given time frame. A session begins when a user arrives on a page with your tracking code installed.

Think of your website as a building and the Google Analytics code as a motion sensor in each room. For you to know which rooms a person visited, how long they stayed, and the path they took, you need a sensor in every single room. If a room (a webpage) is missing a sensor (the GA code), that part of the visitors' journey is completely invisible.

What Happens When Pages Are Missing the Tracking Code?

Forgetting to tag even one or two important pages can wreak havoc on your data quality. Here’s what goes wrong:

  • Broken User Journeys: Imagine a visitor lands on your homepage (tracked), clicks to your services page (untracked), and then clicks to your contact page (tracked). To Google Analytics, it looks like the user visited the homepage and then mysteriously materialized on the contact page out of nowhere. The "Behavior Flow" report becomes useless, showing a massive, incorrect drop-off on the homepage.

  • Inflated Bounce Rates: A bounce is a session with only one engagement hit. If a user lands on your blog (tracked) and then clicks to an untracked "About Me" page and leaves, Analytics only sees the single pageview on the blog. It marks the session as a bounce, even though the user was engaged and visited two pages.

  • Inaccurate Session and User Counts: If a user navigates from a tracked page to an untracked one and then returns to a tracked page, Analytics might begin a brand new session. This inflates your session count and can often misattribute the source of traffic, commonly showing up as "Direct" or a self-referral (traffic from your own domain).

  • Missed Conversions: This is the most costly mistake. If a user completes a form and lands on an untracked "Thank You" page, your goal conversion will never fire. You'll have no idea which channels, campaigns, or keywords are actually driving results.

How to Correctly Add Google Analytics to Every Page

Manually pasting the code snippet onto every individual HTML file on your site is inefficient and prone to error. Modern websites use templates and content management systems (CMS) that make this process simple. You only need to add the code in one central location, and it will automatically appear across every page.

1. Using a WordPress Plugin (For WordPress Sites)

If your site runs on WordPress, the easiest method is to use a plugin that handles the integration for you. You won’t need to touch a single line of code.

  • Site Kit by Google: Google's official plugin. It's the most straightforward way to connect Google Analytics, Search Console, and other Google services to your site. You just follow the setup wizard.

  • MonsterInsights: A very popular third-party plugin that adds the tracking code and provides a simplified analytics dashboard right within WordPress.

  • Insert Headers and Footers: A more manual but still simple option. This plugin gives you a box where you can paste code snippets (like your GA tag) that will be automatically added to the <head> section of every page on your site.

With these plugins, you typically just need to authenticate your Google account or paste in your GA4 Measurement ID (which looks like G-XXXXXXXXXX) to get set up.

2. Using Your Platform's Built-in Integration

Most modern website builders and e-commerce platforms have a specific field for your Google Analytics ID, knowing that users will need it.

  • Shopify: Go to Online Store > Preferences. You'll find a "Google Analytics" section where you can paste your tracking code or ID.

  • Squarespace: Go to Settings > Advanced > External API Keys. Paste your Measurement ID into the "Google Analytics" field.

  • Wix: Navigate to Marketing & SEO > Marketing Integrations and follow the connection prompts for Google Analytics.

Look for terms like "Integrations," "Analytics," "Marketing Tools," or "Custom Code" in your platform’s settings.

3. Using Google Tag Manager (Recommended for All Sites)

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that acts as a middleman for all your third-party tracking scripts (like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.). While it has a slight learning curve, it's the most flexible and scalable solution.

The process works like this:

  1. You add the main GTM container snippet to your website’s template once. This is the only time you’ll need to edit your site code.

  2. Inside the GTM interface, you create a "tag" for Google Analytics.

  3. You set a "trigger" for that tag to fire on "All Pages."

  4. From here on out, you can add or remove any other tracking scripts entirely through the GTM interface without ever needing a developer.

This approach keeps your website code clean and centralizes all of your marketing and analytics tags in one manageable dashboard.

4. Editing Theme Template Files (For Custom-Coded Sites)

If you have a custom-built website, you won’t want to paste the code on 20 different HTML pages. Instead, you'll add it to a single template file that is reused across the entire site.

Find the common header file (often named header.php, header.html, or similar) and paste the Google Analytics snippet just before the closing </head> tag. When a page is rendered, this header file is included, ensuring the analytics code loads on every single page.

How to Verify Your Site is Tagged Correctly

Once you’ve put the code in place, you need to check that it’s actually working. Here are three simple ways to do that.

Method 1: The Realtime Report

This is the fastest and most reliable check.

  1. Log into your Google Analytics account.

  2. Go to Reports > Realtime.

  3. In a new browser window, open your own website and click through several pages.

  4. Watch the Realtime report. You should see yourself appear as a visitor, and the "Active Page" should update as you navigate from page to page. If it updates for every page you visit, setup is successful.

Method 2: Use Google Tag Assistant

Google's legacy "Tag Assistant" is a free Chrome extension that can scan any webpage for Google tracking tags.

  • Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store.

  • Navigate to your website and click the Tag Assistant icon.

  • Enable it and refresh the page.

The extension will show you a list of all Google tags found on the page and tell you if they are firing correctly. A green or blue tag indicates a successful implementation.

Method 3: View Page Source

You can do a quick manual check by looking at your site's source code.

Right-click on your webpage and select "View Page Source." Use the find feature (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) and search for gtag.js or your own Measurement ID (e.g., G-XXXXXXXXXX). If you find it, you know the code is present on that page. Repeat for a few key pages.

Are There Any Exceptions to the Rule?

For 99% of websites, the goal is to have the tracking code on every publicly accessible page. However, there are a few niche scenarios where you might intentionally exclude the code.

  • Internal Admin Dashboards: You don't want analytics to track your own staff members editing pages or managing orders. Most CMS platforms do not include the tracking snippet on back-end admin pages by default, so this usually isn't an issue. However, you should also set up IP filtering in GA to exclude traffic from your office.

  • Pages With Very Sensitive Information: For privacy reasons, some organizations may exclude scripts from running on pages with sensitive user-specific data, such as internal billing or health portals behind a login wall.

  • Checkout Process Handled by a Third Party: If your checkout process forwards the user to another domain (like paypal.com) to complete payment before returning them to your "thank you" page, you need more than just the regular tracking code. This corner-case requires setting up cross-domain tracking to link the sessions together properly.

Final Thoughts

In short, installing Google Analytics code on every page is critical for data integrity. Skipping pages breaks the digital breadcrumb trail that users leave behind, giving you a fragmented and misleading picture of their behavior. Choose a scalable method like a plugin, theme integration, or Google Tag Manager to ensure complete coverage without manual work.

Once your data collection is accurate, the next step is turning all those numbers into actionable insights. Rather than spending hours filtering through GA reports or wrestling with Looker Studio, we let you analyze your performance in seconds. With Graphed, you simply connect your Google Analytics account and ask questions like, "Compare traffic from organic search versus paid ads this quarter" or "Show me my top landing pages by conversion rate," and instantly get back clear charts and dashboards. We help you get straight to the answers you need to grow your business.