Is Indirectly Followed by Google Analytics 4?
Thinking about a user's journey through your website as a straight line is a common mistake. Users meander, they get distracted, they open new tabs, and they circle back. Google Analytics 4's path exploration report helps you make sense of this chaotic movement, and a key concept to understand is its new approach to navigation analysis, which reflects what older tools called "is indirectly followed by." This article will break down how this works in GA4 and show you how to use it to uncover incredibly valuable insights about your audience.
What is Path Exploration in GA4?
The path exploration report is a visualization tool found in the "Explore" section of Google Analytics 4. Its purpose is to show you the sequential steps users take on your website or app. Unlike standard reports that give you aggregated data, path exploration lets you see the journey itself - what pages a user visited or what events they triggered, and in what order.
You can create two main types of paths:
- Forward path: Starts with an event or page (a "node") and shows you what users did after that step. For example, what pages do users visit after landing on your homepage?
- Backward path: Starts with an ending point (like a purchase confirmation or a form submission) and shows you the steps users took leading up to it. This is great for reverse-engineering successful conversions.
The Main Difference: Direct "Followed By" vs. Indirect "Followed By" Logic
If you've used older analytics platforms, you might be used to a very rigid "navigation summary" that only shows the immediate next step. For example, if a user goes from Page A straight to Page B, the report shows a path: Page A → Page B. But what if the user went from Page A → Page C → Page B?
A strictly "direct" path report would not show a connection between A and B in that session. This is where GA4's more flexible logic, similar to the concept of "is indirectly followed by," comes into play.
Instead of offering a separate toggle for direct versus indirect paths, GA4's Path Exploration simplifies things by focusing on what happened at some point after the starting node within the same session. When you build a path report, Step +1 isn't necessarily the very next page every single user saw. Instead, it shows you the most popular pages or events that occurred later in the sessions of users who started at your chosen node.
Here’s a simple analogy: imagine planning a road trip from New York to Los Angeles.
- A strictly direct path is like looking only at the very next city you enter after leaving the last. New York → Philadelphia.
- An indirect path shows you any major city you visited on the same trip. New York → Chicago, even if you stopped in Pittsburgh and Cleveland along the way.
GA4's Path Exploration functions more like the second scenario. It helps you see the meaningful "next stops" in the user journey, even if they're not always immediate. This prevents you from getting lost in a mess of insignificant intermediary steps and helps you spot meaningful connections in user behavior.
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How to Build a Path Exploration Report in GA4
Let's walk through creating a basic path report to see what users do after starting a new session on your site.
Step 1: Navigate to the Explore Section
In the left-hand navigation menu of GA4, click on Explore. This will take you to your hub of saved explorations and templates. Click on the Path exploration template to start a new analysis.
Step 2: Choose Your Starting Point
By default, GA4 sets up a forward path starting with the session_start event. This is perfect for seeing what users do at the beginning of their journey.
In the "Variables" column, you have your segmentation options. In the "Tab Settings" column, you control what the report actually shows. The "Starting Point" is already populated, so you don’t need to do anything here for this example.
Step 3: Analyze the Initial 'Step +1'
Once the report loads, you'll see a node for session_start followed by a list of pages or events in the "Step +1" column. This column shows the most common things users did in their session. By clicking on one of these "nodes" (like your homepage), the report will automatically generate "Step +2," showing you what those users did next.
You can continue clicking on nodes in each step to extend the path further and follow the most common user journeys across your site.
Step 4: Customize Your Path View
By default, GA4 might show Event names. If you want to see website pages instead, simply drag the Page path and screen class dimension from the "Variables" list on the left and drop it onto the "Starting Point" or any "Step" node in the middle section. This will re-calculate the path based on page views instead of events.
Practical Use Cases for Indirect Path Analysis
Now that you know how to build the report, what can you actually do with this information? Understanding indirect paths lets you move beyond simple page-to-page navigation and answer bigger questions.
1. Discovering Unexpected "Golden Paths"
You might assume the most important user journey on your e-commerce site is Homepage → Product Category → Product Page → Add to Cart. But your path analysis might reveal a hugely profitable, indirect path you never expected: Homepage → Blog Post → Product Page → Add to Cart.
By seeing that a significant number of converting users interact with a blog post somewhere in their journey, you've just discovered a high-value piece of content. You can now double down on that strategy by optimizing that blog post with better imagery, more prominent links, and clearer calls-to-action.
2. Identifying Leaks in Your Funnel
Let's say you're analyzing the path starting from a product page (/products/product-a). You'd hope to see checkout or add_to_cart as prominent subsequent steps. However, the path exploration report shows that a large number of users who view Product A eventually end up on the /faq or /contact-us pages.
This is a major red flag. It tells you the product page itself isn't answering key questions customers have. They are leaving the conversion path to look for information on shipping, returns, or product details. Armed with this insight, you can update your product page to address these questions directly and keep users moving toward a purchase.
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3. Validating Your Marketing Campaigns
You create a landing page for a big Facebook Ads campaign. Your goal is for users to sign up for a free trial. You can create a path exploration report that starts with users whose first page view was your specific landing page.
Then, look down the path. Is free_trial_signup showing up frequently in Step +2, +3, or even +4? If so, the landing page is working. Even if users visited a pricing page or a features page first, you know they indirectly got to the goal. But if you see that most users from that landing page end up leaving the site or navigating to non-related pages, you know your campaign-to-site journey is broken and needs rethinking.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Path Analysis
As powerful as Path Exploration is, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure your analysis is clean and useful.
- Apply Segments for Context: A path that works for desktop users might fail for mobile users. Always add comparison segments (found in the "Variables" column) for cohorts like "Mobile users," "Paid Traffic," or "New users" to understand how different groups behave.
- Clean Up Your View by Excluding Nodes: Your report might get cluttered with irrelevant events or pages like
(not set). To remove a node, simply right-click it in the visualization and choose Exclude node. This helps you focus on the paths that matter. - Focus on the Thickest Branches: You'll see dozens of tiny paths branching off from your main nodes. Don't get stuck trying to analyze every single one. The thickness of the line connecting two nodes represents the volume of users. Follow the main "highways" to understand the behavior of the majority of your users.
- Beware of Data Sampling: For accounts with a lot of data, GA4's Explore reports are often based on a sample of your total data. Look for the green shield icon in the top right corner. If it indicates sampling is active, you can try shortening your date range for a more precise report.
Final Thoughts
Understanding user paths in Google Analytics 4 is less about tracking rigid, step-by-step navigation and more about uncovering the important connections in a user's overall session. By embracing this flexible logic - which mirrors the old concept of "is indirectly followed by" - you can move past simple traffic metrics and start discovering golden opportunities, plugging funnel leaks, and building a better customer journey based on how users actually behave.
While GA4 is incredibly powerful, diving into the Explore reports can sometimes feel slow and overwhelming when all you need is a quick answer. Using dashboards is the fastest way to stay on top of your key metrics, and that's precisely why we built Graphed to streamline this process. It connects to Google Analytics and all your other marketing and sales tools instantly. You can ask Graphed, "show me the top 5 user paths from our latest blog post" or "create a dashboard of our sales funnel from Salesforce and campaign performance from Facebook Ads," and get a live, automated report in seconds - no more waiting for data to load or wrestling with complex interfaces. Graphed allows you to get straight to the insights so you can get back to growing your business.
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