Counting traffic in GA that doesn't accept cookies?

Am being told GA doesn't do this..

[Mark_A]

What is the story here? I am told if a visitor declines cookies, GA doesn't register their visit ..

Seems crazy, and certainly a pain for checking on organic visitors ..

[Mark_A]

Is anyone else seeing this? Got any views?

[not2easy]

By default, most modern browsers disallow tracking cookies (I don't use Chrome, but I believe they are not disallowing) so I'd imagine that lots of people have the same problem but may not have a solution or even be aware. Log analytics don't tell you who's clicking what.

Have you looked at Matomo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matomo_(software)

[Mark_A]

Hi not2easy thanks for your response. I hadn't heard of Matomo before it looks interesting. Only thing is our SEO folk swear by GA4 inputs into their monthly reports. I am just investigating if our choice of cookie widget may have something to do with this. Whatever - our traffic reports seem to be missing the number of people who don't accept cookies which makes everything look worse than it is.

[not2easy]

I've run across cookie widgets that are simple and those that seem to hide tracking cookies in with a label of "Only Necessary Cookies" and "All Cookies" as options, I don't like clicking on either since I can't guess what they consider "Necessary". Given choices most will opt out of tracking cookies though. I have no suggestions for the issue.

[NickMNS]

Cookies are used to keep state. HTTP requests alone do not keep any state (unless you use headers or pass query params, think 'fbclid'). Blocking tracking cookies only blocks the cookies and not the requests. In theory blocking cookies should not prevent Google analytics from handling the requests, but it would result in each subsequent request from a single user being seen as a new request, well IP could be used to infer that it is the same user when the clicks are in close successions. Blocking cookies really prevents you from knowing if a user left your site and then returned later and also knowing how the user got to your site.

TBH I'm not sure how GA4 handles this, but it should be able to tell whether the first visit is organic or not, because Google can pass the referer header with the click from search and that does not require cookies. That data would also be available to you in your raw server logs, regardless of GA4.

[Mark_A]

Hi NickMNS unfortunately at the moment I don't have access to raw logs for this site. However I really just want to be comfortable that the stats GA4 produces are a complete picture of activity on the site, being told it doesn't include people who decline cookies throws that into doubt.

[tangor]

just want to be comfortable that the stats GA4 produces are a complete picture of activity on the site

Those stats ARE complete --- as far as GA4 is concerned. If you want FULL reporting check the site server logs as that will reveal ALL activity FOR THE SITE.

[Mark_A]

Hi tangor, they might be complete for GA4 purposes but my info is that perhaps 30% of visitors decline cookies. As for server logs I would need the right tool to interpret them, I know how massive they are, plus my SEO people just want to work from GA4.

[NickMNS]

Here is a link to Google help docs:
[support.google.com...]

from the link:

The pings described above can include:
Functional information (such as headers added passively by the browser):
Timestamp
User agent (web only)
Referrer

GA4 does record visits even in the case that a user has declined cookies.
Note that Referrer is included so you should see whether traffic is or isn't organic.

[Mark_A]

Hi NickMNS that looks interesting, thank you, "if you have consent mode enabled"? Reading up about it more.. Don't know if we have consent mode on or not..

[Mark_A]

Our developer says "Google Consent Mode v2 has been enabled for tracking on the website since etc" .. are we sure this is an issue?