How to check that Google Analytics is working?

In this short post we provide an easy method to double check that Google Analytics is correctly loaded and collecting data on a website.

Performing the test

It is best to perform this test without any cookies set by a previous visit, so use a private/incognito window. Open one in your browser (this example uses Google Chrome), then open the Developer tools (F12, or right-click → Inspect).

In the Developer tools, select the Network tab so you can inspect the requests the website makes. Now type your website URL in the address bar to load the page you want to check.

Once the page has loaded, type collect in the Network filter box. If Google Analytics is active, you’ll see a request to /g/collect on google-analytics.com — this is the request that sends the visitor’s data to Google’s servers. If it fires, your analytics is working.

This applies to today’s GA4 properties. (Older Universal Analytics setups — now retired by Google — instead loaded an analytics.js script and used a plain /collect endpoint.)

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