# Google Analytics 4: What It Really Tells a Small Site | Fokuus [Home](https://fokuus.be/en/) [Blog](https://fokuus.be/en/blog/) Google Analytics 4: what it really tells a small site # Google Analytics 4: what it really tells a small site What is Google Analytics 4 and what does it really tell a small Belgian site? Our GA4 figures: suspicious traffic from North America, our own visits and a measurement gap. [Anton Pycarelle](https://fokuus.be/en/about/) 15 October 20267 min read time ## In this article - [What GA4 does, and how to set it up](https://fokuus.be/#wat-ga4-doet-en-hoe-je-het-instelt) - [137 sessions from North America, 87 seconds combined](https://fokuus.be/#137-sessies-uit-noord-amerika-samen-87-seconden) - [One in three Belgian sessions was our own](https://fokuus.be/#een-op-de-drie-belgische-sessies-was-van-onszelf) - [A custom cookie banner on 27 August](https://fokuus.be/#een-eigen-cookiebanner-op-27-augustus) - [Two weeks without measurement](https://fokuus.be/#twee-weken-zonder-meting) - [Search Console counts what happens in Google](https://fokuus.be/#search-console-telt-wat-er-in-google-gebeurt) - [How to read GA4 on a small site](https://fokuus.be/#zo-lees-je-ga4-op-een-kleine-site) Between 7 July and 4 October 2026, Google Analytics counted 329 sessions in the fokuus.be property. Of those, 137 came from the US and Canada, and those visitors had our site actively on screen for a combined 87 seconds. Not per visit: all 137 combined. Anyone who reads that total as 329 interested visitors is kidding themselves. Google Analytics 4, or GA4 for short, is Google's free measurement tool that tracks who visits your website, how they arrive and what they do there. Everything GA4 measures, from a page load to a link click, it logs as an event ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9322688?hl=nl) ). The standard version of the old Universal Analytics has not processed data since 1 July 2023 ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10089681?hl=nl) ), so anyone who says Google Analytics today means GA4. ## What GA4 does, and how to set it up GA4 counts sessions, shows which channel people arrive through (Google, a link on another site, an email or direct) and measures how long they are active and what they do. A session gets the label "engaged session" if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a key event or has at least two page views ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12195621?hl=nl) ). For a small site, that's the most useful figure. Setting it up takes four steps: creating an Analytics account, creating a property, adding a data stream for your website and placing the Google tag on your site. Google describes them in [the official help](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9304153?hl=nl) . What that doesn't mention: in Belgium, that tag requires consent. According to the Belgian Data Protection Authority, there is "no exemption" from consent for cookies that measure the public, not even for cookies on your own domain ([GBA](https://www.gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.be/professioneel/thema-s/cookies) ). That consent helps determine what you get to see in GA4. ## 137 sessions from North America, 87 seconds combined Of the 329 sessions, 144 came from Belgium, 82 from the US and 55 from Canada. Of those 137 American and Canadian sessions, 126 were listed as "Direct": according to Google, the channel for anyone who arrives via a saved link or by typing in the address ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9756891?hl=nl) ). I find it hard to believe that so many North Americans know our address by heart. The peak came on 7 August: 63 sessions in a single day, all direct from Canada and the US, with a combined zero seconds actively on screen. Barely 12 percent of all North American sessions had engagement. Doesn't Google filter that out, then? Partly. GA4 automatically excludes traffic from known bots and spiders. You can't turn that filter off, and you can't see how much traffic it blocks either ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9888366?hl=nl) ). So whatever reached us, Google didn't recognise as a known bot. With zero seconds of activity, I don't believe for a second these were real people. I can't prove it. ## One in three Belgian sessions was our own Of the 144 Belgian sessions, at least 47 were our own. 22 of them weren't even on fokuus.be, but on previews of new versions of the site. Another 20 came through clicks from our own test environment and 5 via Google Tag Assistant, the tool you use to check whether your measurement is working. Since 29 September, our previews no longer load measurement scripts. Anyone who clicks from a preview through to the real site still counts there as normal. Without those own visits, 97 Belgian sessions remain, of which 61 percent had engagement. The difference with North America therefore still holds, although the raw figure of 65 percent was slightly too high. ## A custom cookie banner on 27 August On 27 August 2026 we replaced CookieYes with a custom cookie banner using Google Consent Mode v2. That only fetches GA4's measurement script once someone accepts analytics cookies. Google calls that the basic implementation: tags stay blocked until there is consent, and if a tag is blocked for that reason, it collects nothing ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9976101?hl=nl) ). You can find which cookies we use in our [cookie policy](https://fokuus.be/en/cookiebeleid/) . After that, the picture looked completely different. Without our own visits, 34 of the 193 sessions came from Belgium between 7 July and 26 August, 18 percent. Between 11 September and 4 October, it was 63 of 83, or 76 percent. Sessions from the US and Canada dropped from 120 to 16 across those periods. My explanation: a script that mimics visits rarely clicks "accept", and without that click GA4 doesn't load. I can't prove it: what GA4 doesn't load, it also can't show. Before the cookie banner, the US and Canada dominated, after it Belgium. In between, two weeks without measurement. Measured on 5 October 2026. There's a downside: anyone who declines doesn't exist for GA4, and we never count how many people that is anywhere. Google only fills such gaps with modelling under the advanced implementation, and among other things only from 1,000 daily consenting users onwards ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11161109?hl=nl) ). A small SME site falls well below that, ours included. ## Two weeks without measurement Looked at per day, you see something that disappears in a monthly total. From 28 August through 10 September, GA4 registered not a single session, from any country. On the new site, live since 10 September, a check on 11 September revealed that the site's security rules (the CSP) were blocking the address GA4 sends its measurements to. After that fix, the first sessions came back in that same day. Why the old site also sent nothing through in the two weeks before that, we never recorded. An empty report looks like a quiet week. Even after that, the numbers stay small. Between 11 September and 4 October, 18 Belgian sessions came in through Google, and none of them counted in GA4 as a key event. The other 45 Belgian sessions came in directly (19), via ad links (15, of which 3 via Google Ads since 2 October), via the report email from our AI check (9) and via LinkedIn or an unknown source (2). I can't demonstrate a lead flow from Google with these figures. ## Search Console counts what happens in Google If you want to know whether you're getting found, check Search Console first. It counts clicks in Google's own search results, before anyone reaches your site, so a cookie banner or a blocked script changes nothing there. Google states that Analytics only measures traffic from users who have JavaScript enabled, and that Search Console sometimes processes its data further, for example to remove duplicates and visits from robots ([Google](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96568?hl=nl) ). Over the same 90 days, Search Console counted 29 clicks from Belgium, GA4 23 Belgian sessions via organic search in Google. Previews and test clicks weren't among them. From 11 September to 4 October, when GA4 was measuring again, it was 19 against 18. Don't read an acceptance rate for the cookie banner into that: according to Google, clicks and sessions are calculated differently ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/google-analytics-search-console) ). With numbers that small, a single returning visitor can already make the difference. Five counters for the same site and the same period. Which number is right depends on your question. ## How to read GA4 on a small site Use GA4 on a small site as a compass, not a counter. It shows what visitors who gave consent do, and whether that's heading in the right direction. First filter out your own visits. In GA4 you can filter out internal traffic by IP address, with a maximum of 10 data filters per property ([Google](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10104470?hl=nl) ). Start by setting that kind of filter to Testing: an active filter works permanently, and whatever it excludes is never processed. Also don't load your tracking code on test versions of your site, and check a report by hostname to make sure no addresses other than your own domain show up. Then filter by country, if your customers are in Belgium. A country filter alone would have left 47 of our own sessions in place; it only works once combined with the first step. Next, look at engaged sessions instead of sessions: 61 percent against 12 says more than any total. A page with many sessions and little engagement is suspicious. Compare ratios over months, not isolated numbers, because anyone who declines is missing anyway. And after every new site or cookie banner, check day by day for a week whether measurement is still coming in. We missed two weeks. For search visibility you use Search Console: which search queries, which pages, which position. How to work through that yourself in ten minutes is covered in [our website analysis guide](https://fokuus.be/en/blog/website-analyse/) . You can read what happens when pages don't get indexed in [our SEO tips](https://fokuus.be/en/blog/seo-tips/) . GA4 stays on fokuus.be, but for the question of whether we get found, we check Search Console first. And anyone who doesn't filter out their own visits is measuring themselves for a good part. Google Analytics GA4 Search Console Cookies Share [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffokuus.be%2Fen%2Fblog%2Fgoogle-analytics-4%2F) [DotsApp](https://wa.me/?text=Google%20Analytics%204%3A%20wat%20het%20een%20kleine%20site%20echt%20vertelt%20https%3A%2F%2Ffokuus.be%2Fblog%2Fgoogle-analytics-4%2F) [Email](mailto:?subject=Google%20Analytics%204%3A%20wat%20het%20een%20kleine%20site%20echt%20vertelt&body=https%3A%2F%2Ffokuus.be%2Fblog%2Fgoogle-analytics-4%2F) ## Get Fokuus updates. New articles and Fokuus's updates in your mailbox. You can unsubscribe at any time. ## Anton Pycarelle Founder of Fokuus Anton builds and optimizes websites for Belgian SMEs from Kortrijk. He writes about choices and experiences from real projects. [More about Fokuus](https://fokuus.be/en/about/) ## Keep reading. 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