How to Track Page Paths in Google Analytics

Seeing which pages on your site get the most views is useful, but it doesn’t tell you the whole story. Understanding how visitors move from one page to another is where you'll find the most valuable insights for improving your website's navigation and conversions. This article will show you exactly how to track these user journeys by analyzing page paths in Google Analytics 4.

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What Exactly Is a 'Page Path'?

A page path is simply the part of a URL that comes after the domain name. It’s what uniquely identifies a specific page on your site.

For example, in the URL https://www.yourstore.com/collections/summer-sale:

• The domain name is yourstore.com.
• The page path is /collections/summer-sale.

Google Analytics automatically records the page path every time a user views a page. This is important because it allows you to analyze site traffic without getting bogged down by variations in the domain name like subdomains (e.g., blog.yourstore.com vs. shop.yourstore.com) or protocol (http vs. https). By focusing on the path, you can easily group similar content and analyze performance more effectively.

Finding Basic Page Path Data in GA4

Before diving into complex user journey analysis, let’s start with the basics. You can find a simple list of your most popular pages in the “Pages and Screens” report. This gives you a high-level overview of which content is attracting the most eyeballs.

Here’s how to find it:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. On the left-hand navigation menu, click on Reports.
3. Under the Life cycle section, open the Engagement dropdown.
4. Select Pages and screens.

By default, this report shows you data with “Page path and screen class” as the primary dimension. This is GA4's way of combining page paths from your website and screen names from your mobile app into a single report.

In this view, you can quickly see key metrics for each page path, including:

• Views: The total number of times a page has been viewed.
• Users: The number of unique users who have viewed a page.
• Average engagement time: The average length of time the page was the primary focus in a user's browser.

This report is great for a quick look at your most popular content, but it doesn't show you how users move between these pages. For that, you need to use the Exploration tool.

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Visualizing User Journeys with Path Exploration

The real power of page path analysis comes from seeing the sequence of pages users visit. GA4’s “Path Exploration” report is perfect for this. It generates a tree-like diagram that helps you visualize the most common routes people take through your website.

Step 1: Create a New Path Exploration Report

The Exploration reports are separate from the standard reports section. Here’s how you can access and set up a new path exploration:

1. In the left-hand menu, click on Explore.
2. At the top of the page, you'll see a template gallery. Click on Path exploration to create a new report.

You’ll now see a default visualization, which usually starts or ends with a "session_start" event. Let's customize it to make it more useful.

Step 2: Choose a Starting Point

The path exploration report shows the journey from a starting point you define. For this example, let's say we want to see what users do immediately after landing on our homepage.

1. In the first column (labeled "Step +0"), click on the box that says "Starting point".
2. From the dropdown, select the “Page path and screen class” dimension.
3. Choose your homepage path. This is typically just the forward slash character: /.

The report will now update instantly. The central column (“Step +0”) represents your homepage, and the columns to the right (“Step +1,” “Step +2,” etc.) show the subsequent pages users visited most frequently.

By looking at “Step +1,” you can immediately answer questions like:

• "What's the most popular next page for someone landing on our homepage?"
• "Are users clicking on my 'About' page or going straight to my 'Shop' section?"
• "Is my key call-to-action on the homepage actually being used?"

You can click on any individual path in the “Step +1” column to see where that specific group of users went next in “Step +2.” This allows you to follow different user journeys deeper and deeper into your site.

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Reverse Pathing: Seeing the Steps Before a Conversion

Visualizing forward paths is great, but sometimes it’s even more insightful to work in reverse. Instead of asking "Where do users go from the homepage?" a reverse path report asks, "How did users get to my thank-you page?"

This is extremely powerful for understanding which pages and content contribute most to your conversions.

You can easily build a reverse path report in the same exploration view:

1. Start a new Path exploration report or click "Start over" on your current one.
2. In the top left corner, find the "Start over" button and just below it, you'll see a small button with an arrow. Click it and select "Rerun". You can now configure this as a reverse path.
3. Choose "Ending point" instead of "Starting point."
4. Search for and select the page path of your main conversion page. This could be /order-confirmation, /thank-you, or /demo-request-submitted.

The report now works backward. The central column (“Step -0”) is your conversion page, and the columns to the left (“Step -1,” “Step -2,” etc.) show the most common pages users visited right before converting.

This view can reveal critical insights:

• Discover your "hidden converter" pages — blog posts or case studies that often lead directly to sign-ups.
• Identify which product or pricing page is the most common final step before a purchase.
• See if users are navigating from a 'Features' page or an 'Integrations' page before hitting 'Request a Demo.'

By understanding the successful paths, you can better optimize the pages that are proven to drive results and guide more traffic toward them.

Advanced Tips for Better Path Analysis

Once you’re comfortable creating basic forward and reverse paths, you can add more layers to your analysis to get even more specific insights.

Compare Behavior by Device

Do mobile and desktop users navigate your site differently? You can easily find out by adding a breakdown to your report.

• In the "Variables" column, look for the Breakdown section.
• Drag and drop the Device category dimension into the empty breakdown box.

Your path exploration will now update, and you’ll see separate color-coded streams for "desktop," "mobile," and "tablet." You might find that mobile users drop off on a particular page more often, signaling a potential design or usability issue for smaller screens.

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Segment by Traffic Source

Knowing how people navigate is one half, and knowing who is navigating is the other. Segments let you filter your report to analyze a specific group of users, like those from organic search or a paid ad campaign.

• In the "Variables" column, find the Segments section and click the plus icon (+) to add a new one.
• Choose to create a "User segment." For this example, let’s build a segment for organic traffic.
• Set the condition to: Session first user medium > contains > organic.
• Name your segment "Organic Traffic" and save it.
• Drag your new segment from the "Variables" column to the "Segment comparisons" box at the top of the interface.

You can now see the page paths taken exclusively by users who found your site through a search engine. Compare this to a segment for "Paid Traffic" to see if users who click ads behave differently from those who arrive organically. These insights can help you tailor your landing pages and website flow based on where your traffic is coming from.

Final Thoughts

Tracking page paths takes you beyond simple pageview counts and helps you see your website through your visitors' eyes. By using tools like the Path Exploration report in GA4, you can visualize complete user journeys, identify friction points where users drop off, and understand what paths lead to successful conversions.

Building these reports manually can sometimes stop your workflow in its tracks just as you're onto a good idea. At Graphed, we connect your Google Analytics data and let you ask these kinds of questions in plain English. Instead of building exploration reports step-by-step, you can simply ask, “What are the top 5 pages people visit after landing on the homepage?” or “Show me the most common path that leads to a purchase,” and we’ll instantly turn those questions into the visualizations you need. We built it to remove the busywork, allowing you to stay focused on finding insights, not navigating complex analytics menus.