How to Compare Organic Traffic in Google Analytics 4

Figuring out if your SEO efforts are paying off starts with comparing your organic traffic over time in Google Analytics 4. It’s the clearest way to see if your rankings are improving, if your content is hitting the mark, and if you’re attracting more of the right audience from search engines. This article will walk you through exactly how to compare date ranges, analyze organic landing pages, and use the flexible reporting tools in GA4 to get clear insights into your SEO performance.

Understanding The Basics: What is Organic Traffic in GA4?

In Google Analytics 4, traffic is automatically categorized into what are called "Default channel groups." One of these is Organic Search. This group includes all users who arrive at your site by clicking on an unpaid search result from engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and others.

Each time someone visits your site, GA4 analyzes how they got there. If it detects a known search engine as the source and can't find tracking parameters that identify it as paid traffic (like from Google Ads), it categorizes that session under Organic Search. This is why it's a reliable proxy for your SEO performance, it directly measures the traffic you've earned, not paid for.

Comparing this "earned" traffic over different time periods - month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter, or year-over-year - is essential. It helps you:

• Measure SEO ROI: Determine if your investment in content creation and optimization is translating into more visitors.
• Identify Trends: Spot seasonal patterns or see the impact of Google algorithm updates on your traffic.
• Diagnose Issues: Catch sudden traffic drops that could signal a technical problem or a loss in rankings.
• Validate Success: Confirm that a specific content strategy or optimization project led to the desired traffic growth.

Let’s explore the different methods you can use within GA4 to start making these comparisons.

Method 1: The Simple Date Range Comparison in Standard Reports

The quickest way to get a high-level view of your organic traffic trends is by using the built-in comparison feature available in most standard GA4 reports. The Traffic Acquisition report is the perfect place to start.

Step-by-Step Guide to Comparing Dates

Follow these steps to compare your organic traffic between two different time periods:

1. Navigate to the Traffic Acquisition Report: In the left-hand menu of GA4, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. This report shows you where your users are coming from, broken down by channel group.
2. Open the Date Range Selector: In the top-right corner of the screen, click on the date range. A calendar control will appear.
3. Turn on the "Compare" Toggle: At the bottom of the calendar panel, you’ll find a toggle switch labeled "Compare." Flip it on.
4. Select Your Two Date Periods: You'll now see two sets of date-pickers. The top one is your current period, and the bottom one is the period you want to compare against. You can choose from presets like "Previous period" or "Previous year," or you can manually select a custom date range for each.
5. Click "Apply": The report will refresh and now display data for both periods, along with columns showing the percentage change for each metric.

Analyzing the Comparison Data

Once the report reloads, it might look busy. To focus solely on your organic search performance, use the search box directly above the data table and type "Organic Search." This filters out all other channels.

You’ll now see a single row showing the performance of your Organic Search channel across both time periods. Here’s how to interpret the key columns:

• Users / Sessions: The percentage change here tells you if your overall organic traffic volume is going up or down. A positive change is a great sign!
• Engaged sessions: This metric shows sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion, or included at least two page views. An increase here signifies you're not just getting more traffic, but more quality traffic that finds your content relevant.
• Conversions: If you have key events set up as conversions (like form submissions or purchases), this shows whether your growing organic traffic is leading to more business goals being met. This column connects your SEO work directly to your bottom line.

This quick comparison is perfect for monthly reporting and gives you a powerful snapshot of your overall SEO health.

Method 2: Analyzing Organic Landing Page Performance Over Time

Knowing that your overall organic traffic is up is great, but knowing which pages are driving that growth is even better. Analyzing your organic landing pages helps you understand which keywords, topics, and content types are resonating most with search audiences. This is how you discover what to double down on.

Finding and Filtering Your Landing Pages Report

The standard Landing Page report shows data from all channels by default, so you'll first need to isolate your organic visitors by creating a quick comparison filter.

1. From your GA4 dashboard, navigate to Reports > Engagement > Landing page.
2. At the top of the report, click the "Add comparison" button.
3. A configuration panel will appear on the right. Set the conditions as follows:
4. Click "Apply." The report now shows two versions of your data: one for "All Users" and a new one just for your organic search segment. You can close the "All Users" view by clicking the 'x' on its card to reduce clutter.

Comparing Date Ranges for Filtered Landing Pages

Now that you have a report filtered to show only organic landing pages, you can apply a date comparison just like in the first method:

1. Click the date range selector in the top-right corner.
2. Toggle on the "Compare" switch.
3. Select your two date periods (e.g., this quarter vs. last quarter). Click "Apply."

You’ll now have a powerful, actionable report that shows a side-by-side comparison of organic traffic for every single one of your landing pages. You can sort the table by the "Users % change" column to instantly see your biggest winners and losers.

Turning Landing Page Insights Into Action

This report is where real strategy comes from. You might find that:

• A blog post you published three months ago is now your fastest-growing page. Action: Write more content on that topic cluster or build internal links to that page.
• An old "evergreen" guide has seen a 40% year-over-year increase in traffic. Action: Add a content refresh to your to-do list to make sure it contains the latest information and to protect its rankings.
• A critical product page has lost 25% of its organic traffic over the last month. Action: Investigate immediately. Check for technical SEO issues, see if competitors' pages are now outranking yours, or look for opportunities to improve the on-page content.

Method 3: Creating an Organic Traffic Segment in Explorations

For even more flexibility and customization, you can use the Explore section in GA4. Explorations allow you to build reports from scratch and save them for reuse. Creating a dedicated segment for organic traffic is a "do-it-once" task that will save you time later.

Segments are powerful because they let you analyze a specific slice of your audience or traffic across any custom report you build.

Building Your Reusable Organic Segment

1. Navigate to the Explore section in the left-hand menu.
2. Start a new "Free form" exploration.
3. In the "Variables" column on the left, find the "Segments" panel and click the + icon to create a new one.
4. Choose to create a "Session segment." This type of segment looks at behavior within a given visit.
5. In the builder, set the condition for your segment by searching for the "Session default channel group" dimension. Configure it as follows:
6. Give your segment a clear name, like "Organic Search Sessions," and click "Save and Apply."

Using the Segment in an Exploration Report

Your Exploration will instantly update to show only data for sessions that came from organic search. Now you can build any report you need by dragging Dimensions and Metrics into the "Tab Settings" column.

For example, to recreate your landing page analysis:

• Rows: Drag in the "Landing page + query string" dimension.
• Values: Drag in metrics like "Sessions," "Engaged sessions," and "Conversions."

This gives you a fully customized table focused exclusively on your SEO performance. Now you can follow the same date comparison steps outlined in Method 1 to see how this custom report has trended over time.

Final Thoughts

Whether you use a simple date range comparison in a standard report, filter your landing pages, or build a custom exploration, GA4 provides multiple ways to measure and compare your organic traffic. Consistently tracking these trends is the key to proving the value of your SEO work, diagnosing problems before they escalate, and making smarter decisions about your content strategy.

While GA4 is powerful, running these comparisons can still involve a lot of clicking, filtering, and report configuration just to get to the data you need. We built Graphed to make this instantly accessible. Rather than navigating menus, you can connect your Google Analytics account and simply ask a question in plain English like, "Compare my organic traffic this quarter versus last quarter by landing page," and get an interactive dashboard in seconds. It helps you skip the repetitive setup and get straight to the insights that grow your business.