How to track web pages with zero traffic in Google Analytics

Last Updated: November 30, 2022

In this article, I will show you how to track web pages with zero traffic in both Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics (GA3).

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) does not report on web pages with zero pageviews in a selected time period.

However,

GA4 reports on web pages with zero pageviews on certain days and one or more pageviews on other days in a selected time period.

Thus the concept of zero traffic is time-bound.

Almost every web page on your website got traffic at some point in its lifetime.

Looking at your GA4 reports with a very large time frame, you may see a pageview recorded for almost every page on your website. 

The web pages with zero pageviews do not add value to your business’s bottomline. They do not generate any traffic.

By identifying such web pages, you can either update them to increase their search engine ranking position or repurpose their content.

Web Pages with less than 30 pageviews in the last month or any month

web pages with zero pageviews ga4

Note: GA4 uses the ‘viewsmetric to report on pageviews.

If a web page has fewer than 30 pageviews in the last month or any month, it means it got zero pageview on one or more days of the month.

This is the easiest way to determine zero-traffic pages on your website. 

No website crawl, no Excel hacks, and everyone can do it pretty easily with just a few clicks.

Follow the steps below to track web pages with zero traffic in GA4

Step-1: Login to your GA4 property.

Step-2: Click on ‘Admin‘ from the left-hand side navigation menu:

ga4 admin 1

Step-3: Click on the ‘Reporting Identity‘ link under the ‘Property‘ column:

reporting identity ga4

Step-4: Click on the ‘Show All‘ link:

show all link

Step-5: Click on ‘Device-based‘ and then click on the ‘Save‘ button:

device based reporting identity ga4

GA4 applies an unspecified data threshold to prevent a user from inferring the identity of individual users.

Because of the data threshold, you may not see the web pages in your GA4 reports, which got very few pageviews.

By changing your reporting identity to ‘device-based’ you can see more data in your reports.

Step-6: Click on the ‘Confirm‘ button:

stop using blended identity

Step-7: Click on Explore from the left-hand side menu:

explore ga4 report 1

Step-8: Click on the ‘Blank’ exploration report template:

start a new exploration ga4

Step-9: Name your report ‘Pages with zero pageviews’:

pages with zero pageviews

Step-10: Set the date range to the last 30 days:

date range last 30 days 1

Step-11: Click on the + button next to ‘DIMENSIONS‘:

add dimensions ga4

Step-12: Search for the ‘Page Path + query string’ dimension, click on the checkbox next to it and then click on the ‘Import‘ button:

page path query string dimension ga4

You should now see the imported dimension listed under the DIMENSIONS section:

listed dimension ga4

Step-13: Click on the + button next to METRICS:

add metrics ga4 1

Step-14: Search and select the following metrics one by one in the exact order as mentioned below and then click on the ‘Import‘ button:

  1. Views
  2. Sessions
  3. Engaged Sessions
select metrics ga4

You should now see all the imported metrics listed under the METRICS section:

imported metrics ga4 1

Step-15: Double click on the dimension ‘Page Path + query string’ so that it is automatically added to the Rows section:

double click dimensions ga4

Note: When you double-click on the ‘‘Page Path + query string’ dimension, you won’t see any change to the canvas on the right. But the dimension has been added to the canvas. When you start adding metrics to the canvas, you will see the dimension(s) added to the canvas.

Step-16: Double click on the following metrics one by one, starting from the very top, so that they are automatically added to the blank canvas on the right:

  1. Views
  2. Sessions
  3. Engaged Sessions
double click on the metrics one by one

You should now be able to see the dimensions and metrics added to the report canvas on the right:

pages with zero pageviews report ga4

Step-17: Sort the ‘Views’ column on the canvas in descending order by clicking on the ‘Views’ column header:

click on views column header

Your report should now look like the one below:

zero pageviews

From the screenshot above, we can conclude that many URLs are reported multiple times.

And this happened because the URLs contain query parameters.

To clean up the report, we would need to exclude query parameters.

Step-18: Scroll down to the ‘FILTERS‘ section under ‘Tab Settings‘ and then click on the button ‘Drop or select dimension or metric‘:

drop or select dimension or metric 1

Step-19: Click on ‘Page Path + query string’ dimension from the drop-down menu:

select page path query string dimension ga4

Step-20: In my case, I would set the match type to ‘does not contain‘, the expression to ‘?‘ and then click on the ‘Apply‘ button:

exclude query parameters ga4

You may need to set up a different filter depending on the query parameters you want to exclude from the URLs.

Now you can see the list of all the web pages which got zero pageviews on certain days in the last month:

final report

Step-21: Download the report (click on the ‘Export Data‘ button) and then update the articles or repurpose them.

export data ga4

Note: You would need to append the domain name to the URIs in either Excel or Google Sheets.

Follow the steps below to track web pages with zero traffic in Universal Analytics (GA3):

zero pageviews

Step-1: Navigate to your GA3 reporting view.

Step-2: Navigate to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages report:

all pages report ga3

Step-3: Sort the data table by ‘Pageviews‘ metric in descending order:

all pages report universal analytics

From the screenshot above, we can conclude that many URLs contain query parameters which make the report hard to understand.

To clean up the report, we would need to exclude query parameters.

Step-4: Click on the ‘advanced‘ button to apply an advanced filter to the data table:

advanced filter ga3

Step-5: Set up your filter depending on the query parameters you want to exclude from the URLs and then click on the ‘Apply’ button:

advanced filter universal analytics

Now you can see the list of all the web pages which got zero pageviews on certain days in the last month:

zero traffic pages universal analytics

Step-6: Download the report and then update the articles or repurpose them.

Note: You would need to append the domain name to the URIs in either Excel or Google Sheets.

Finding web pages with zero pageviews in the last month

Maybe you are unsatisfied with finding ‘1 pageview a month’ web pages.

You also want to know the web pages that haven’t got a single pageview in the last month, which are truly dead.

There are a couple of methods to find zero pageview pages. I will show you the one which is easiest to implement. 

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Open Screaming Frog SEO Spider tool. It is a powerful website crawler that can also communicate with Google Analytics API. I used this tool a lot for tag auditing.

Step-2: Go to the ‘Configuration‘ menu and then click on the ‘Spider‘ menu item:

configuration menu

Step-3: Uncheck the following checkboxes to speed up your website crawl:

  1. Check Images
  2. Check CSS
  3. Check JavaScript
  4. Check SWF
  5. Check External links
spider configuration

If you start the website crawl without unchecking these boxes and your website has got tens of thousands of web pages, then it may take forever to complete the crawl.

Moreover, we don’t need image files, CSS files, JavaScript files, etc. for our analysis.

Step-4: Again, navigate to the ‘Configuration‘ menu and then click on API Access > Google Analytics:

api access

Step-5: Click on the ‘Connect to New Account’ button in the ‘Google Analytics Configuration’ dialogue box:

connnect to new account

You will then be redirected to a new web page in your browser, where you will see the following similar message:

accept button

Step-6: Click on the ‘Accept‘ button. Screaming frog tool can now access your Google Analytics data via API.

Step-7: Select the Google Analytics account, Property and view whose data you want to analyse from the drop-down menus:

ga configuration2

Select the GA view that has no filters and contains all of your website traffic data.

Step-8: Click on the ‘Date Range’ tab and select the last month date as shown below:

date range tab

Step-9: Click on the ‘ok’ button to close the ‘Google Analytics Configuration‘ dialog box. 

You have now configured both your crawler and Google Analytics.

You are now ready to start the website crawl.

Step-10: Enter your website URL and then click on the ‘start‘  button to start the website crawl:

start the crawl

Step-11: When the crawl is finished, click on the ‘Analytics‘ tab:

analytics tab

Step-12: Select ‘No GA data‘ from the ‘Filter‘ drop-down menu and then click on the ‘Export‘ button to download the data into excel:

no ga data

Step-13: Open the downloaded CSV file (named analytics_no_ga_data.csv) in excel. This file contains the list of all those web pages which got zero traffic in the last month.

However, this file could also contain those web pages which were crawled but would never be reported by Google Analytics.

These pages could be:

#1 Web pages with 301 status code

#2 URLs which are not really web pages (like https://www.optimizesmart.com/http:www.optimizesmart.com).

#3 URLs with a lot of weird query parameters.

#4 URLs that have got server-side issues (4xx or 5xx errors)

The fastest way to get rid of all such web pages is to filter out only those pages which have got 200 status code:

no ga data excel file

Finding web pages with zero pageviews using sitemap.xml

To find out pages with zero page views, you first need to have a list of URLs for your site.

If your site is medium size and has only less than 500 pages, then we can use sitemap.xml.

Step-1: Create a list of URLs from the sitemap.xml and remove the domain names from the URL. If your website doesn’t have a sitemap, then you can create one by using https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Step-2: Navigate to https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ website and enter your website URL to create an XML sitemap and click on ‘Start’.

create xml sitemap

Step-3: Once the scan is complete, you will see a status like the one below, which includes the time taken to scan, pages scanned etc. Click on ‘View sitemap details’.

sitemap details

Step-4: You can either download or view your XML sitemap.

download sitemap

Step-5: Now, copy all the pages on your website into an Excel file and remove the domain name so it is easier to compare it with the Google Analytics report, which doesn’t include the domain name. 

For example, for https://www.optimizesmart.com/about-us, you would remove the domain name, so the list only has the pathname, i.e. /about-us.

Step-6: Now, login to your Google Analytics report and click on the ‘Behavior’ tab from the left-hand menu.

Behaviour tab

Step-7: Click on ‘All Pages’ under the ‘Site content tab’ menu and select a date range of at least five to six months from the date range selector.

Site content

Step-8: After selecting the date range, click on ‘Export’ above the date selector and export to ‘Excel (XLSX)’.

download to

Step-9: Add this data to the Excel spreadsheet created earlier containing the sitemap URLs. Using an Excel formula, check if the URLs captured in Google Analytics match with the sitemap URLs.

To make this task easy, I used the sample Google spreadsheet shared by James from the Beantin website.

Step-10: You just have to replace the URLs in A and column C with your sitemap and Google Analytics URLs.

graveyard pages example sheet

Note: you can copy this spreadsheet and use it to find the pages with zero page views.

Step-11: All the pages with “No” are the pages that have zero pageviews in your Google Analytics reports.

However, it would be difficult to do this manual process if you have a website with more than 500 pages.

You need to use another alternative to find the pages with zero views.

Use the Screaming Frog tool I discussed earlier.

#1 Google Analytics 4 Intro

  1. What is GA4 (Google Analytics 4) – The Apps + Web Property?
  2. Key Benefits of Using Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  3. Setup GA4 – Upgrade to GA4 – Implementation Guide
  4. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) vs Universal Analytics – What is the Difference?
  5. GA4 vs GA4 360 – Pricing, Limits, Billing and More
  6. Google Analytics 4 Training & Tutorial with FREE GA4 ebook

#2 Google Analytics 4 Property

  1. Google Analytics Account Hierarchy (Structure Explained)
  2. Understanding Google Analytics Measurement ID (GA4)
  3. Google Signals GA4 – See Demographics (Gender, Age) in Google Analytics 4
  4. Using the GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Test Property
  5. Google Analytics 4 Sub Properties Tutorial
  6. Roll up Property in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) – Tutorial

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  1. How to connect GA4 (Google Analytics 4) with Google Data Studio
  2. How to link GA4 (Google Analytics 4) with Google Ads
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  4. How to Install Google Analytics 4 on Shopify
  5. GA4 Firebase Integration – Correctly Add App Data Streams to GA4 Property

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  1. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Event Tracking Setup Tutorial
  2. Understanding Event Parameters in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  3. Recommended Events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  4. Enhanced Measurement Events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  5. Automatically Collected Events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  6. How to Set Up GA4 Custom Events via Google Tag Manager
  7. Events Report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  8. How to Rename Events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  9. How to Use Google Analytics 4 Event Builder
  10. GA4 Form Interactions Tracking – Enhanced Measurement

#5 Google Analytics 4 Conversions

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  2. How to Import Conversions from GA4 Property to Your Google Ads account
  3. GA4 Conversion Rate – How to find it and use it

#6 Google Analytics 4 Dimensions

  1. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Dimensions Tutorial
  2. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Custom Dimensions Tutorial
  3. GA4 User Properties (User Scoped Custom Dimensions) – Tutorial
  4. Event Scoped Custom Dimensions in GA4 – Tutorial

#7 Google Analytics 4 Metrics

  1. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Metrics Tutorial with Free Google Analytics 4 Ebook
  2. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Custom Metrics Tutorial
  3. What are Predictive Metrics in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

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#9 Google Analytics 4 Specialized Tracking

  1. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Enhanced Measurement Tracking Tutorial
  2. Cross Domain Tracking in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Setup Guide
  3. GA4 Site Search – Tracking Site Search in Google Analytics 4
  4. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Scroll Tracking Tutorial
  5. Self-referral Google Analytics 4 – Referral exclusion GA4
  6. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Data Import Tutorial
  7. Google Analytics 4 Content Grouping – Create Content Groups in GA4
  8. How to Track Single Page Apps in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  9. utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign Parameters – GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
  10. GA4 Form Tracking via Google Tag Manager

#10 Google Analytics 4 filters

  1. GA4 filters – Understanding Data Filters in Google Analytics 4
  2. How to Create and Test Filters in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
  3. Exclude Internal Traffic in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) via IP Filter

#11 Google Analytics 4 Explorations

  1. Free Form Report in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) – Exploration Report
  2. How to Use the User Lifetime Report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  3. How to Use Path Exploration Report in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) – Path Analysis
  4. How to Use Segment Overlap Report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  5. How to Use the Funnel Exploration Report in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) – Funnel Analysis
  6. Cohort Exploration Report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  7. How to Create Landing Pages Report in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
  8. How to Create Google Ads report in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
  9. How to Segment GA4 Data by Data Stream
  10. Organic Search Traffic Analysis in GA4 – Complete Guide
  11. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Outbound Links Tracking
  12. How to Track Email Campaigns and Traffic in GA4

#12 Google Analytics 4 Advanced

  1. Understanding Google Analytics 4 Sessions
  2. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Measurement Protocol Tutorial
  3. How to Build Comparisons (Advanced Segments) in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  4. Understanding Automated Insights in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  5. Understanding Channel Groupings in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  6. Understanding Data Sampling in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

#13 Google Analytics 4 Reports

  1. How to Create Custom Insights in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  2. How to Use Debug View Report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

#14 Google Analytics 4 Attribution

  1. Guide to Attribution Models in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
  2. How to Change Attribution Models in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)?
  3. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Conversion Paths Report in Attribution
  4. GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Model Comparison Report in Attribution
  5. Advertising Snapshot in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) Attribution
  6. GA4 Attribution Modelling Tutorial

#15 Google Analytics 4 Audiences

  1. GA4 Audiences – Creating Custom Audience in Google Analytics 4
  2. How to Create a Remarketing Audience in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  3. Understanding Audience Triggers in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
  4. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Predictive Audiences – Tutorial

#16 Google Analytics 4 BigQuery

  1. GA4 BigQuery – Connect Google Analytics 4 with BigQuery
  2. BigQuery GA4 Schema – Send Custom GA4 Data to BigQuery
  3. How to Backfill GA4 Data in BigQuery
  4. How to Connect and Export Data from GA4 to BigQuery

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