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How to Change HTTP to HTTPS in Google Analytics

Cody Schneider••7 min read

Switching your website from HTTP to HTTPS is a critical step for security and SEO, but once you've installed your SSL certificate, your work isn't quite done. You also need to tell Google Analytics about the change to ensure your data stays accurate. This guide will walk you through exactly how to update your settings in Google Analytics 4 and the older Universal Analytics.

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Why Updating Your URL in Google Analytics Matters

You might think Google Analytics is smart enough to figure out the protocol change on its own, and sometimes it is. However, leaving your old http:// address in the settings can lead to several preventable headaches:

  • Data Inaccuracy: In some cases, having a mismatch between your site's actual URL and the one in your settings can cause issues with tracking, leading to incomplete or skewed data. For instance, some self-referrals might pop up when they shouldn't.
  • Loss of Referral Data: When traffic passes from a secure HTTPS page to an insecure HTTP page, the referral data often gets stripped for security reasons. Ensuring your GA property is set to HTTPS helps preserve this valuable information about where your visitors are coming from.
  • Messy Reporting: You might see your website traffic split between http://yourdomain.com and https://yourdomain.com in some reports. This makes it harder to see the full picture of your performance without manually combining data. It's much cleaner to have a single, definitive source of truth.

Updating your settings is a simple 'best practice' that creates a clear and unambiguous signal for Google Analytics, ensuring seamless and accurate tracking after your site migration.

Before Making the Change: A Quick Prerequisite Check

Before you jump into Google Analytics, confirm two things to make the process smooth:

  1. Confirm Your Website is Fully Migrated to HTTPS. The most important step happens on your website itself. Make sure your SSL certificate is correctly installed and that your entire site uses HTTPS. You can easily check this by visiting your website — look for the padlock icon in your browser's address bar next to your URL. If you don't see it, or if you see a warning, you'll need to resolve that with your hosting provider before updating Google Analytics.
  2. Make Sure You Have Editor or Administrator Access. To change property settings in Google Analytics, you need sufficient permissions. Make sure you're logged into a Google account with either "Administrator" or "Editor" level access for the property you're updating.

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How to Change to HTTPS in Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 handles property settings differently than its predecessor, Universal Analytics. Instead of having a "Default URL" setting at the property level, everything related to your website's data collection is managed within a Data Stream. For most site owners, the transition to HTTPS is handled automatically by GA4, but it is essential to verify that the settings are correct.

Here’s how to check and update your website URL in GA4:

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. Log in to your Google Analytics account.
  2. Navigate to the Admin section by clicking the gear icon (⚙️) in the bottom-left corner.
  3. In the Property column (the middle one), ensure that the correct GA4 property is selected.
  4. Click on Data Streams. This is where your data sources (like your website or app) are configured.
  5. You will see a list of your data streams. Click on the Web data stream associated with your website. It will usually be named after your domain.

Next steps:

  1. In the "Web stream details" pane, look at the Stream URL. This is the primary URL that Google Analytics associates with this data stream.
  2. If your URL is still listed as http://, click on the pencil icon (✏️) in the top-right corner to edit the stream information.
  3. Update the protocol from http:// to https:// in the Website URL field and click Save.

That's it for GA4! Because GA4 is designed to be more flexible, just ensuring the main Stream URL is correctly set to https:// is all you need to do.

Updating from HTTP to HTTPS in Universal Analytics (for Legacy Properties)

While Google has officially sunsetted Universal Analytics (UA), many businesses still have old properties they refer to for historical data. If you're managing or referencing an old UA property, you'll need to update the URL in two separate places.

Note: This process only applies to older Universal Analytics properties (UA-XXXXXX-X). It is not applicable to GA4 properties.

1. Update the Property Settings

The first place to make the change is at the "Property" level, which defines the default URL for the entire property.

  • Navigate to the Admin section of your UA property.
  • In the Property column, click on Property Settings.
  • Locate the Default URL field. You'll see a dropdown menu that currently says http://.
  • Click the dropdown menu and change it to https://.
  • Scroll down and click Save.
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2. Update the View Settings

Next, you must make the same change at the "View" level. Most analytics reporting happens within a specific view, and this setting can override the property's default URL.

  • Still in the Admin section, move to the third column labeled View.
  • Ensure the correct reporting view is selected (e.g., "All Web Site Data"), and click on View Settings.
  • Look for the Website's URL field. Just like before, it will have a dropdown.
  • Click the dropdown and change the protocol to https://.
  • Scroll down to the bottom and click Save.

If you have multiple views (e.g., a "Test View" or a "Backup View"), you should repeat this step for each of them to ensure consistency across your entire account.

Post-Update Checklist: 3 Key Things to Do Next

Once you’ve updated your URL settings in Google Analytics, there are a few final housekeeping steps to complete the process properly.

1. Verify Your Real-Time Data Flow

Don't just assume everything is working. The easiest way to verify is to check your real-time report. Open a new browser window and visit your website yourself. Then, in the GA4 Reports section, go to Realtime. You should see your visit appear within a minute. This quick check confirms that GA4 is still receiving data from your secure site.

2. Update (and Link) Google Search Console

Google Search Console treats HTTP and HTTPS versions of a site as separate properties. After your migration, you should ensure that you have added and verified the https:// version of your domain. Once that's done, you need to link this new correct Search Console property to Google Analytics 4.

  • Go to the Admin section in GA4.
  • In the Property column, scroll down to Product links and click Search Console links.
  • If your old http:// property is linked, remove it.
  • Click Link and follow the prompts to connect GA4 to your secure HTTPS Search Console property. This ensures data about your organic search Clicks and Impressions flows correctly into your GA4 reports.

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3. Document the Change

In the past, Universal Analytics had a feature called 'Annotations' that let you make a small note on your timeline to mark important events. Unfortunately, GA4 doesn't have a direct equivalent. Instead, maintain an internal log or a simple spreadsheet where you note the date you switched to HTTPS. This will be invaluable later when you're analyzing data. If you see a sudden change in traffic or user behavior, you can look back at your log and recall that the HTTPS migration happened that day, providing necessary context for your analysis.

Final Thoughts

Updating your settings in Google Analytics after an HTTPS migration is a quick but essential step. It ensures your data remains clean, accurate, and reliable, giving you a clear view of your website's performance without the noise of self-referrals or split data.

Keeping settings straight within an individual platform is just one part of the challenge marketing and sales teams face. Juggling data across Google Analytics, your various ad platforms, your CRM, and your e-commerce store to get real answers can take up half the week. To simplify this, we built Graphed to connect all a team’s data sources in one place. You can use simple, natural language to ask questions, create custom reports, and build real-time dashboards so you spend less time wrestling with settings and CSVs and more time acting on insights that grow your business.

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