Advanced Analytics Basics

What is it?

Advanced Analytics is a deeper view of your Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) data. It groups your pages into categories and explains why traffic moved.

This guide covers the parts that every tab shares: opening the screen, dates, filters and exports.

Why use it?

• To know where to find Advanced Analytics and why it may be locked.
• To pick the right dates before you read any tab.
• To narrow the view to one part of your site.

Before you start

• Advanced Analytics is an add-on. It must be switched on for your project.
• Connect GA4, Search Console or both. See Connect your data.

How to use it

1. Open the Analytics screen

   In the sidebar, click Analytics (GA4 + GSC).

2. Open Advanced Analytics

   Click the Advanced Analytics button at the top right. The Category Breakdown tab opens.

3. Pick your dates

   Click 7 days, 28 days or 90 days, or open the date picker next to them.

4. Pick a tab

   Click any of the seven tabs. Your dates stay the same when you switch tabs.

Analytics (GA4 + GSC)→Advanced Analytics

Understanding the screen

Prism

Screenshot coming soon

Access and locks

The page title is Advanced Analytics. Under it Prism says GA4 + Search Console URLs grouped by your Category Builder rules for your project name.

The seven tabs

The Settings button opens the Category Builder.

Quick date buttons

Three buttons sit next to the date picker: 7 days, 28 days and 90 days. 28 days is picked when you open the screen.

• Each range ends three days before today. This gives Google time to finish the numbers for each day.
• A button is greyed out, with the tooltip No synced data in this range, when Prism has no data for those dates yet.

Date picker and Compare

The date picker has the same presets as the rest of Prism, plus your own start and end dates. Compare is on when you open the screen. It compares your range with the preceding period. You can switch it to Same period last year or Custom. Click Apply to use your choice.

Many sections need Compare to show changes. See Date ranges and compare.

Category and Sub-category filters

On Category Breakdown and SEO Root Cause Analysis you see Filter: with two buttons, Category: and Sub-category:.

• The button shows All, the one name you picked, or N selected.
• Open a button to search the list, tick items, or click Select all or Clear. While you search, Select all becomes Select all (filtered) and only picks the items you can see.
• Sub-category: lists only the sub-categories of the categories you picked. It is greyed out when there are none.
• Click Clear filters to reset everything.

The filter stays when you switch between these two tabs. SEO Root Cause Analysis also has an All queries / Branded / Non-branded switch. The other tabs always show the whole site.

Where the numbers come from

• Sessions in Advanced Analytics are GA4 sessions from Google organic search only. This keeps them close to the Search Console clicks, which also come only from Google.
• Clicks, impressions, CTR and position come from Search Console. See Understanding metrics.
• Search Console keeps some searches private. Prism shows that part as (not set). See (not set) explained.

Exports

Exports contain every row of the table, not just the page you see. See Exporting tables.

Example

For example, you want to check last month's blog traffic. Open Advanced Analytics and click 28 days. Keep Compare on. Open Category: and tick Blog. Category Breakdown now shows only blog pages, compared with the 28 days before.

Tips

• Set up the Category Builder first. Without it, every page is Uncategorized.
• Use 90 days for small sites. Many lists need a minimum number of impressions or sessions.
• Keep Compare on. Movers, gainers and Why Analysis need it.

Common issues