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GA4: UA versus GA4 data

Comparing the Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 data models

Hit types
Universal Analytics hit types include page hits, event hits, ecommerce hits, and social interaction hits.

In contrast, Google Analytics 4 data is event-based, with the principle that any interaction can be captured as an event. As such, Universal Analytics property hit types translate to events in a Google Analytics 4 property.

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Events
Events represent a fundamental data model difference between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 properties.

A Universal Analytics event has a Category, Action, and Label and is its own hit type.
In Google Analytics 4 properties, every "hit" is an event; there is no distinction between hit types.
For example, when someone views one of your website pages, a page_view event is triggered.

Google Analytics 4 events have no notion of Category, Action, and Label and, unlike Universal Analytics reports, Google Analytics 4 reports do not display Category, Action, and Label.
Therefore, it’s better to rethink your data collection in terms of the Google Analytics 4 model rather than port your existing event structure to Google Analytics 4.

Pageviews and screenviews
Page views in Universal Analytics translate to the page_view event in Google Analytics 4 properties.
A page_view event is automatically triggered by the config gtag command or by the Google Analytics 4 Configuration tag in Google Tag Manager.

Some Universal Analytics pageview attributes have Google Analytics 4 equivalents, as shown below:

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[to be continued]