Add Google Analytics Tracking Code

Do not use a plugin to add Google Analytics tracking.

Seeing your traffic stats in WordPress is entirely unnecessary. You should be monitoring your search traffic by logging in once per month in order to answer very specific questions. Watching daily and weekly numbers does nothing but give you anxiety.

Genesis has made it very easy to add scripts to the header and footer areas of your site. One common reason you'd want to do this is to get Google Analytics working on your WordPress site.

Jump to:

Getting the tracking code
Inserting the tracking code (old)
Inserting the tracking code (new)
Pagespeed Optimization
Filtering FBCLID
Enable Site Search Tracking
Optimizing with Google Analytics

Getting the tracking code

If you haven't signed up for Google Analytics, go ahead and do that. We won't cover that here, because there's 1000 articles already written about it in Google.

Once signed up, head to Settings > Property > Tracking Info > Tracking Code

Then grab the gtag.js tracking code:

Inserting the tracking code (old)

Once you've signed up for Google Analytics and you have your tracking code you can place it:

Navigating to Admin > Theme Settings > Header and Footer Scripts.
Place the code in the Header Scripts box and then save the settings at the bottom of the page

You're all set to start tracking your site metrics! Google can take up to 24 hours to start processing data, but there should be an option on the page to check it's been implemented right away.

Remember to flush your cache if you have this in place.

Inserting the tracking code (new)

Use the Admin > Snippets > Add New (Code Snippets plugin) to create a new snippet, with the following code:

// we want to use code snippets because the customizer is unreliable
add_action( 'wp_head', 'custom_google_analytics' );
function custom_google_analytics() {
?>

<!-- insert Google Analytics code here -->

<?php
}

You're all set to start tracking your site metrics! Google can take up to 24 hours to start processing data, but there should be an option on the page to check it's been implemented right away.

Remember to flush your cache if you have this in place.

Pagespeed Optimization

We highly recommend everyone have WP Rocket for pagespeeed purposes.

Make sure you have WP Rocket > File Optimization > Load Javascript Deferred > enabled

You'll want to add the following to your WP Rocket > Preload > Prefetch DNS Requests

//google-analytics.com
//www.google-analytics.com
//ssl.google-analytics.com

Filtering FBCLID

A number of services add tracking parameters to outbound links, including Google Adwords, Facebook, and newsletter. Even the "Customize" screen generates unique URLs that clutter up your Google Analytics.