Transitioning to GA4: Why Keeping Your Old Google Analytics Account Matters
Whether you need to keep your old Google Analytics (often referred to as Universal Analytics or UA) account after updating to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) depends on your specific needs and considerations:
- Historical Data: GA4 and Universal Analytics don’t share data. If you discard your old UA account, you might lose access to your historical data, which can be essential for year-over-year comparisons, retrospective analysis, etc.
- Feature Parity: As of my last update in January 2022, GA4 offers many new features, but there may still be some reports, integrations, or features in UA that aren’t available or are set up differently in GA4. Keeping your UA running alongside GA4 ensures you don’t miss out on any data or features you currently rely on.
- Learning Curve: There’s a learning curve when transitioning from UA to GA4, given the new interface, event-based tracking model, and other changes. Keeping your UA account active provides a safety net while you get accustomed to GA4.
- Redundancy: Having data in both versions provides a backup in case of tracking issues in one of the platforms.
- Transition Period: It’s a common best practice to run both versions concurrently for a period. This overlap allows you to ensure that GA4 is set up correctly and capturing data as expected before you consider phasing out UA entirely.
- Potential Deprecation: Google has signaled that GA4 is the future of Google Analytics, so there’s an expectation that support and updates for UA might eventually wind down. However, as of my last update, there hasn’t been a firm end-of-life date announced for UA.
While it’s not strictly necessary to keep your old UA account after updating to GA4, there are several compelling reasons to maintain both, at least for a transition period. Before making any decisions, evaluate your reliance on historical data and any specific UA features you use regularly.
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