Google Analytics 4 shows you the source of traffic and ideally purchases. Those reports don't always work as expected. In this Analyzify help center article; we will show you how you can fix UNWANTED REFERRALS on Google Analytics 4.

GA4 Referral Problem for Shopify Stores

The problem: You are seeing unnatural referrals on your Google Analytics 4 reports - and it breaks your reports. They are not the actual referrals - but only another website the user has visited in between the session. 

The solution: Using Analytics' referral exclusion setting. 

The most common unwanted referrals are: 

• Payment Providers (PayPal, Stripe, Klarnapayment, etc) 
• Your current domains (if you have more than one domain or if you have changed your domain)
• Checkout Processors (Carthook, Recharge, etc)

A Note: Social media referrals shouldn't also be here - especially if you are running ads. However, you DO NOT want to exclude them. They are actual traffic sources. But you want to make a correct UTM set up so that the traffic source is defined correctly such as paid, campaign name, ad name, etc.