How to get the Universal Analytics Property Tracking Code (UA) in Google Analytics?

2 days back, when I was trying to create a Google Analytics property for my Hubpages Account. After I have connected my Property, google was only showing me a Tracking ID that starts with ‘G-’, but Hubpages only accepts the tracking code of the form ‘UA-’.

I started searching all through the internet but didn’t find a single good source that explains clearly how to do that. It took me 1 hour to figure this out and I wanted to write this article to help future users who are going to search for this.

So what does this ‘G-’ and ‘UA-’ mean?

‘G-’ stands for the Google Analytics 4 property which is the new method launched by Google in October 2020 for tracking your analytics.

Google hopes to provide smarter insights so that businesses would take better marketing decisions and improve their ROI.

‘UA-’ stands for Universal Analytics Property, which was the previous method used by the method, even though google threw it, still many websites use this for tracking.

So how to change from this to that?

Let’s go through this, step by step.

1. On the bottom left side of the Google Analytics page, go to Admin, and then select Create Property.

2. Now you will need to fill in all the required details like Name of the Property, Time Zone, and Currency Details.

3. If you go to the next step after this, then boom, it's gone, you will again end up getting only the ‘ G-’ code.

4. So, before moving onto the next step, click on the Show Advanced Options.

5. Switch on the Universal Analytics Property and add your website link.

6. If you want both the UA and the G code, then you can click on the first option or if you want only the UA code, like in the case of Hubpages, then you can click on the second option.

7. Now you are on the right path, and after the completion of the process, you will be able to get a Universal Property Tracking code.

What will the tracking code look like?

The tracking ID is a string like UA-000000-2. It must be included in your tracking code to tell Analytics which account and property to send data to.

The first part UA represents the Google Analytics Version and the next 6 digits represent the Account ID which is unique for every account and then the final digit represents the index of your property. I.e if this is my second property that you have created in your Google Analytics account, then it will be 2.

Where to see this tracking ID in your Google Analytics Account?

1. Go to Admin, then Property.

2. Choose the property that you need to track.

3. Then at the top, you will see your required Tracking ID.

So why were you getting this ‘G-’ code and not the ‘UA-’ code before?

This is because previously you were creating a Google Analytics 4 property which is now the default property set by Google, and not the Universal Analytics Property.

Even though Google has changed it, some websites still use the Universal Analytics Property for tracking.

As explained by Google:

“ The Universal Analytics property is a part of an earlier version of Google Analytics and only supports web measurement. It is not recommended for new Analytics users, and it will not support app measurement. Turn this on if you'd like to create a Universal Analytics property. “

Thanks for reading through the blog post. Hope it helped you in getting your UA tracking code. If you enjoyed reading, make sure to give it a like and follow me on Instagram or subscribe to my newsletter to get notified for future content like this.