GA4 has almost stopped counting visitors, but people are still arriving. Every day this lasts is lost from your GA4 data for good, so it needs fixing straight away.
What it means
When visitors vanish overnight while Google keeps sending clicks, the traffic hasn’t gone: GA4 just isn’t seeing it. The title says “looks broken” when Search Console confirms that clicks held up, and “may be broken” when there isn’t enough Search Console data to check.
What triggers it
It compares GA4’s average daily visitors over the last 3 days with the 28 days before. The issue is raised when a website that averaged more than 20 visitors a day falls by over 85%, while Search Console clicks stay at 60% or more of their normal level (or Search Console has fewer than 5 clicks a day to compare). It is always Critical.
If search clicks fell just as hard, it’s treated as a real drop instead. While this issue is open, the traffic, search and conversion checks for the website are paused.
Common causes
- A website update, theme change or plugin change removed the GA4 tag or Google Tag Manager snippet.
- A new or changed cookie banner stops the tag from loading, even after visitors accept.
- The measurement ID was changed to another property, or the tag was paused in Tag Manager.
How to fix it
- Open the website, accept cookies, and check GA4’s Realtime report or DebugView for your own visit.
- View the page source and confirm the GA4 or Tag Manager snippet is there with this property’s measurement ID.
- Undo or fix whatever changed around the day the drop started, then add a timeline note so reports explain the gap.
When it clears
Once GA4 records normal visitor numbers again, usually within a day or two of the fix. The missing days can’t be recovered, so they stay low in charts and totals.
Days with no visitors at all may then be raised as GA4 recorded no visitors on some days for the next four weeks.