Universal Google Analytics Code Migration

[vivekrathore]

We still have the old/classic version of Analytics "ga.js" installed on our site pages. Now, planning for GA code migration...

Some of my queries are:

1.) Will a migration from old ga.js code to new analytics.js code reflect any changes in site traffic in GA?

2.) Will we witness any dip in total site traffic OR a dip in any particular channel like "Organic, Referral, Direct" due to traffic shifting elsewhere?

3.) What will happen to the historical data?

Any similar experiences? insights? Much appreciated.

[Alick300]

Hi Anirban,

First of all I would like to let you know that upgrading to UA is not a small task esp. if you are managing a very big website. Please don’t take this task lightly. It is not as simple as Google claims in its documentations and videos.

I would suggest you to set up Universal Analytics in parallel with GA and test it and If you find all tracking is working fine then you can switch.

Please check this post you will know how to implement this step by step @ https://www.optimizesmart.com/universal-analytics-upgrade-guide/

Nothing will lost, you will have all historical data

Hope this helps.

Thanks

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Yups I agree with the answer that is given here, if you're using any way of event tracking currently on your site it might be a good idea to look into changing that to the dataLayer and making the switch to a Tag Manager as well. By doing this you can make sure that with future changes for your site you can depend on a protocol that isn't depending on a specific tool or changes that a tool like Google Analytics will make in the future.