How to Get Pageviews in Google Analytics

Finding out how many people view your website pages is a fundamental task, but extracting that number from Google Analytics 4 can feel like a mission. You just want a simple answer. This guide will show you exactly how to find pageview data in GA4, both for your entire site and for specific pages.

We'll cover where to find the "Views" metric, how to analyze which of your pages are most popular, and how to uncover insights that can help you improve your content strategy.

What Are "Pageviews" in Google Analytics 4?

First, a quick but important clarification. In Google Analytics 4, the metric and reporting language has changed slightly from what you might remember in Universal Analytics. What was once called "Pageviews" is now simply called "Views."

The "Views" metric counts the total number of times a user loaded a specific page on your website or a screen in your app. If a single user visits your homepage, then your "About Us" page, then goes back to the homepage again, that single session will record 3 views.

It's easy to mix up Views, Sessions, and Users, so here's a simple way to think about it:

• Users: This is the number of individual people who visited your site. Each person is counted once, no matter how many times they visit. (Think of them as the unique customers entering a store).
• Sessions: This is the number of visits to your site. If the same user visits your site in the morning and again in the afternoon, GA counts that as two sessions. (The customer visited the store in the morning and came back later).
• Views: This is the total number of pages that were loaded during all those sessions. (The customer looked at five different products during their visit).

Understanding these distinctions helps you interpret your data accurately. A high number of views compared to sessions means that people are looking at multiple pages per visit, which is often a good sign of having engaging content.

How to Find Your Total Site Views in Google Analytics 4

Finding the overall view count for your site is straightforward. It gives you a big-picture snapshot of your content performance.

Here’s where you find it:

• Log into your Google Analytics account.
• Navigate to the Reports section using the left-hand navigation menu.
• Under the Life Cycle section, click on Engagement.
• Click on the Pages and Screens report.
• At the top of the Pages and Screens report, you'll see a summary card that offers an overview of key metrics. The total site views of your website are displayed there as the metric Views.

How to View Pageviews for Specific Pages

Understanding which individual blog posts, product pages, or landing pages are resonating with your audience can drive your entire strategy.

Using the same Pages and Screens report you found in the previous section, scroll down past the summary chart. You will see a table of all your page data.

This table is the central hub for analyzing your content performance.

Here’s a column-by-column breakdown:

• Page path and screen class: This is the most important column for finding specific pages. It shows part of the URL after the domain name. For example, your homepage might just be a forward slash (/), while a blog post might be /blog/your-first-article.
• Views: This column shows the total number of times that page was accessed within the selected date range.
• Users: This shows how many individual people saw a page. This is the closest equivalent in GA4 to the "Unique Pageviews" metric from Universal Analytics.
• Average Engagement Time: This is the average number of seconds users viewed each page. High numbers here can indicate engaging content that keeps people coming back for more.

Understanding these distinctions helps you interpret your data accurately. A high number of views compared to sessions means that people are looking at multiple pages per visit, which is often a good sign of having engaging content.

How to Use This Data for Specific Pages

Here’s how to use this data to find the view count for any specific page on your site:

• Stay in the Pages and Screens report, and find the Search box above the table of data.
• Click into the search box and start typing the URL of the specific page you want to see views for. You don’t need to include your full domain name - just the page part that starts with a /.
• For example, if you want to find views for a page with the URL yourwebsite.com/blog/new-product, just type blog/new-product and hit enter.
• The table will automatically filter to show only pages that match your search query, allowing you to see the Views, Users, and other metrics just for that one page.

Analyzing Pageview Data to Discover Insights

Getting the numbers is just the first step. The real value lies in using this data to derive actionable insights.

Here are a few ways to use the Pages and Screens report for more than just counting:

Identify Your Most Popular Content

By default, the table in GA4 is often sorted by Views in descending order (from high to low). This immediately shows you which pages are the most popular with your audience.

This is invaluable for content strategy:

• Double Down on Lessons: See what topics tend to resonate best with your audience. You may notice that tutorials or case studies drive significantly more views than announcements.
• Replicate Success: Use your top-performing pages as templates for future content. Can you write another article on the same topic? Or update the existing high-traffic articles with newer information?

Find Opportunities for Improvement

Conversely to identifying top performers, it's just as important to find the content that isn't getting traction. To do this, click the small arrow next to the Views heading to sort the table in ascending order.

This reveals pages with the fewest views and presents a prime opportunity:

• Optimize or Promote: Is a page getting few views because it isn’t well-written? Can it offer better information on your site? Implement changes such as SEO optimization efforts or promoting it on social media to drive more traffic.
• Prune Your Content: Some pages you have may be outdated or no longer relevant to your business. Identifying these can help you decide whether they need deletion or consolidation into fewer, more comprehensive pieces.

Compare Pageviews Over Time

Is your content strategy working? One of the best ways to answer this is by comparing performance over time. In the top right corner of the GA4 interface, you'll see a date range selector. Use this tool to:

• Track seasonal trends: Do certain products or services experience volume spikes during specific months?
• Measure campaign impact: Did they actually increase in Views after you ran a Facebook Ad campaign?
• Identify any sudden declines: Comparing your top pages month-over-month could help you spot issues before they become major problems.

Use Secondary Dimensions for Deeper Context

This is a slightly more advanced technique that unlocks additional insights into your data.

Secondary dimensions add another layer of data to your reports. Right next to the primary dimension dropdown at the table where you currently see pages and views listed, click the dropdown to add a secondary dimension. This pops up a menu where you can choose from a wealth of options:

• Session Default Channel Grouping: This shows you which marketing channels are driving the most traffic to each of your pages. You might discover that your blog posts are attracting traffic from multiple sources.
• Device Category: Knowing whether visitors are on desktop or mobile helps you optimize the user experience. If traffic is primarily coming from mobile, ensuring that your pages are responsive and easy to read on a small screen is crucial.

Common Pageview Questions (Mini-FAQ)

• What happened to "Unique Pageviews"? If you're used to Universal Analytics, you’ll remember the Unique Pageviews metric. This metric doesn't exist in GA4 anymore, but the closest equivalent is the Users metric next to the page path. This metric tells you how many individual people viewed that specific page within a given timeframe.
• Why can't I see the full URL? GA4 defaults to showing the page path (the portion of the URL after the domain) as <Page Title> <path>. This can provide adequate analysis, but if you need to see the full URL including the hostname, you can do this by adding a Page Title and URL secondary dimension.
• How does GA4 compare with the brand-new interface? GA4's new tracking structure is designed to deliver both privacy and track a consumer's behavior once they've accepted cookies.

Final Thoughts

In short, finding pageview data in Google Analytics 4 is all about the Views metric within the "Pages and Screens" report. This report equips you to identify top-performing pages and provides the tools to add deeper context with options like source and device tracking.

If you've often found yourself bogged down by default features, functions, and differences in data analytics, just remember it's simpler than it seems. Understanding and using these insights will immediately build a better dashboard for you, enabling access to a data environment and making it easier to get insights in seconds instead of hours.