Same web property ID is tracked twice

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Google's Tag Assistant plugin is an indispensable tool for troubleshooting various Google tags like Google Analytics, Google AdWords, and Google Tag Manager; just install and navigate to your site to enable checks for nearly 300 possible issues. This post will describe how to fix of one of the most common issues reported by this plugin: "Same web property ID is tracked twice."

web-property-img1

ERROR MESSAGE EXPLANATION

Same web property ID is tracked twice simply means that you have the Google Analytics tracking script on your page more than once, with the same tracking ID. This means every page load fires off two or more instances of the GA code, and will cause metrics like page views and bounce rate to be incorrect. The most common reasons for this error are:

  1. GA is firing from within Google Tag Manager AND from GA code in a page template
  2. GA is firing from a plugin (e.g. a Magento or WordPress plugin) AND from GA code in a page template
  3. GTM contains multiple GA pageview tags
  4. Your page template contains old and new versions of the GA script at the same time

In short, Google Analytics provides a tracking code script that can be directly placed on your website. Alternately, you can fire Google Analytics from within Google Tag Manager or various plugins.  To avoid double-counting, you should use only one of these implementation methods, and the tracking code should only be implemented once. For tips on determining where exactly you've double-implemented the GA tracking code, read on.

STEP #1. CHECK FOR MULTIPLE TAGS WITH THE GA DEBUGGER

This is the best all-around method to start with since it usually identifies the source of the issue. To start, install this Chrome add-on: Google Analytics Debugger. Once it's installed, do the following:

  1. Click the add-on icon in the Chrome toolbar to ensure that it says "GA Debug: ON"
    web-property-img2
  2. Navigate to your site
  3. Open Developer Tools in Chrome (Press F12 on Windows or Cmd + Opt + I on Mac), and click the Console tab
  4. [optional] Type "pageview" into the filter bar at the top. This isn't necessary, but it makes the output easier to read
  5. Check for multiple versions of the "send pageview" call to Google Analytics, as shown in the screenshot.
    web-property-img3
  6. If you see multiple calls with the same UA number, with and without the "gtm" preface, as in the above example, it means you have implemented GA both directly on the page and through GTM. In this case you need to remove your GA code from the page template so that you're only firing GA from within Google Tag Manager. (While you could alternately remove your GA code from GTM so it's only firing from the page template, generally it's better to implement via GTM)
  7. If you see multiple calls with the same UA number, and they all have the "gtm" preface, it means you've set up multiple GA pageview tags from within GTM. This is an example of what that would look like:
    web-property-img6
    Here you can see some calls prefaced with 'gtm1', and others prefaced with 'gtm2'. In this case you need to log into your GTM account, navigate to Tags and remove all but one of your GA pageview tags.
  8. If you see multiple calls with the same UA number, and none of them have the 'gtm' preface, it means you have multiple GA pageview tags being fired from within your page template. Here's an example of what that would look like:
    web-property-img11
    Here you can see two lines that each say ga("send", "pageview"). There's no 'gtm' preface so you know they're not being set in Google Tag Manager.

Once you've completed the above, you should know whether the extra GA code is firing from the page template, from GTM, or some combination. If it's firing from GTM only, you're done here as you just need to log into your GTM account to remove the extra code. If the code is firing from the page template, read on for information on how to dig a little more to see exactly where the code is being injected onto the page.

STEP #2. CHECK THE PAGE SOURCE

The method from #1 will verify if you have multiple instances of the tracking code, but it won't necessarily identify where this code is being fired from. To check this you will need to review each place where GA code can be inserted.

To identify where the code has been added, first check the page source. Since GA tracking code can be located in a separate JS file, this method isn't always effective, but it's worth checking since it's fast and easy.

To check the page source, navigate to your site and click Ctrl-U (or right-click > View Page Source). Now hit CTRL-F and search for your account ID  ('UA-XXXX-X'). This may immediately locate the tracking code script(s) on your page.

web-property-img9

If you have a custom site, you or your developers will need to find and remove these extra GA scripts from the page template files within your codebase. If you're using a platform like WordPress or Magento, you may need to remove these scripts from your plugins or settings. Step #4 has some more info on that.

STEP #3. CHECK YOUR SITE'S SCRIPTS

If you didn't find anything by reviewing the page source, you can search all the scripts for your site like this:

  1. Open Developer Tools in Chrome (Press F12 on Windows or Cmd + Opt + I on Mac)
  2. click Ctrl+Shift+F
  3. In the search box that appears, type in your UA tracking ID.
  4. In the bottom panel, a list of code snippets containing this tracking ID will appear. You can review each one to see the name of the file containing the snippet, and click each entry to be taken to the location in your code.
    web-property-img5

STEP #4. CHECK YOUR CMS SETTINGS AND PLUGINS

If you're using a platform like WordPress or Magento, there are a few common places where GA code can be inserted. You will need to review each of these possible locations:

WORDPRESS

  1. Google Analytics plugins. In WordPress, navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins and see if there are any Google Analytics plugins in the list. Also check the settings for other marketing or analytics plugins like the All-in-one SEO plugin, since they may have an option to include GA trackers as well.
    web-property-img7
  2. Google Tag Manager plugins. As above, navigate to WordPress > Plugins > Installed Plugins and see if there are any Google Tag Manager plugins in the list. If so, check the settings or log into your Tag Manager account to look for a GA tag.
  3. Theme page templates (usually located at WordPress > Appearance > Editor > header.php). Open up your theme's files and search for GA or GTM code to see if it has been directly inserted here.
    web-property-img8
  4. Custom option within a theme. Some themes have an option to directly enter a GA tracking ID, usually located under WordPress > Appearance > Customize. Review your theme's settings to see if this is the case.

MAGENTO

  1. Built-in Google Analytics. Magento has a built-in Google Analytics integration. In Magento version 2.x, check if this has been enabled by navigating to Stores > Configuration > Sales > Google API
    web-property-img12
  2. Google Analytics Extensions. There's no single place to view Magento modules/extensions, but often you can find them in the menu under Stores > Configuration. Look through this list for GA-related extensions:
    web-property-img13
  3. Google Tag Manager Extensions. Under Stores > Configuration, look for Google Tag Manager extensions.
    web-property-img14 If you see a Tag Manager extension, log into the Google Tag Manager account and check if any Google Analytics tags have been implemented within it.

In all cases, make sure you're using ONE implementation method for Google Analytics, not multiple methods.

Still have any questions? Let me know below.

256 thoughts on “Same web property ID is tracked twice”

    • Hi Pawel, I checked your site and the issue is that the same GA code is firing twice: one via Google Tag Manager, and once via a service called CallPage. Check the CallPage settings and either disable the GA tracking or send it to a different property ID.

    • Hi Marija, I checked it and the problem is that you are firing the GA code both directly on the page and again through Google Tag Manager (GTM). This means every page is being counted twice.
      To fix this, you need to remove one copy of the GA code. I suggest keeping the GTM version and removing the GA code from the page. I can't get more specific because I don't know how your website is structured, but basically you need to find where GA gets added to the site, and remove it. Good luck šŸ™‚

    • Hi Sergey, I see the code on your page firing 5 times to a single tracker, meaning your page views are being counted 5x too high.
      From what I can tell, the extra pageviews are coming from this script: brain.com.ua/build/retail.js?20180329. Please remove it from the page and see if that resolves the problem.

    • Hey there, you have the GA code firing from both within a script (pptaccess.com/cdn-cgi/apps/head/yeBqAOWLrE5L_1tK101nGDWoKGM.js) and from within Google Tag Manager (GTM). I'm not totally sure what that script is but it appears to be related to Cloudflare. So I suggest disabling GA from within Cloudflare, or otherwise removing the GA section from the script, and using GTM only. Please let me know if that works for you!

  7. HI I have same issue and I already read your tutorial but not the problem still Same web property ID is tracked twice, and I would appreciate some assistance. my we site raqidigital.com

    • I checked your site but Tag Assistant isn't showing any error for me. If you're still seeing an error, shoot me a message via the contact form and I'll take another look.

    • What happens when you actually click on the '2 requests' text? I've seen this issue on another site, where Tag Assistant originally showed 3 Remarketing Tag requests, but when I clicked on the '3 Requests' text, it collapsed them together and showed them as just 1.

  9. Hey,
    Thank you for sharing! However, I tried all your tips and nothing worked.
    My Google Tag Assistant says "Same web property ID is tracked twice." & "Non-standard implementation." What does that mean?
    The website is: http://www.interoffices.com
    Thanks!

    • I checked your site and don't see the "Same web property ID is tracked twice" error message in Tag Assistant, so maybe you've updated your site since posting this comment. And you can ignore the "non-standard implementation" message since your code is firing fine. (It's just a false error message that appears when your GTM account ID is longer than 6 characters).

  10. Try and figure this one out then! I'm stuck!
    https://aimont.co.uk/
    Same web property ID is tracked twice apparently. I'm not using GTM. I only have one analytics ID being picked up in my source code. I'm using the default Magento 2 integration. No other tracking code in header/footer or javascript. If I disable Analytics in Magento, I lose both 'tracked pages' - perhaps a bug?

    • Hi Sam, I checked your site and as you said, the script is only set once via Magento. And since both tracking calls disappear when you disable Magento, it confirms that this is a bug with the Magento GA integration. I checked online and found this bug discussed here: https://github.com/magento/magento2/issues/12221. That page says it will be fixed with the with the upcoming 2.3.0 release, but if you'd like to fix it earlier, you can try disabling the default Magento GA integration and implementing GA through a different Magento plugin.

    • I found the GA script twice on your page: once via the MonsterInsights plugin, and once again via Google Tag Manager. So just delete one of those and you should be good. (I personally prefer to install GA via GTM rather than a plugin, but it's up to you). Hope that helps!

      • Thanks Ana! Can you help how to find this error? Use Google Chrome dev tool or other services.

      • I followed the steps I described in the first method above: opened the GA Debugger and filtered for 'pageview'.

    • I checked your site and I see 2 possibilities. First, I see Global Site Tag (gtag.js) on your site, as well as Magento's built-in tracking. This could be the problem as normally you should only have one or the other, not both. However, in this case it also looks like your gtag.js snippet is missing a line, in which case it's not firing anyway.

      The other possibility is you're running into a known Magento bug, in which their GA tracking code fires twice (details: https://github.com/magento/magento2/issues/12221). They should be fixing this by the end of 2018. In the meantime I suggest disabling Magento's GA tracking and fixing your version of the Global Site Tag. You can find the full script at Admin > Property > Tracking Info > Tracking Code.

  13. Hi Ana,

    I would be grateful for your help on this. https://apprisemed.co.uk

    I installed Google Optimize, using GA, as recommended to reduce latency as would otherwise occur if used GTM which is easier. I'm getting a problem, 'same web property ID Is being tracked twice'.

    Much appreciated

    • Hi Sam, I checked your site with the GA Debugger and see 'gtm1.send' and 'gtm2.send' pageview calls, which means you have 2 pageview tags being set in GTM. I don't think this is related to your Optimize installation, you just need to log into GTM and remove one of the extra Google Analytics Page View tags.

      • I also have this issue, does it matter which tag is removed? Can tags be tied to triggers for example?

      • If the tag doesn't have a trigger, then it won't fire at all and won't cause your property to be tracked twice, so you can safely ignore any tags without triggers. You need to remove any extra, active Pageview tag.

      • Right, I checked your site and didn't see any difference between what the 2 tags are sending to GA, so you should be fine to delete either one.

    • Hi Marcus, using the GA debugger I see one line that reads ga("send", "pageview") and another that reads ga("gtm1.send", "pageview"). This means you have GA code firing from both a script on your page and from within GTM. To fix this, I suggest removing the code from your script and using just GTM (though you could alternately do the reverse). The script looks to be located at /cdn-cgi/apps/head/mEKuAwu_y_u1Qu9t6St41ByEyd4.js.

    • Hi Drew, I checked your site and don't see the "Same web property ID tracked twice" error message in Tag Assistant. I think you're fine.

  17. Hi Ana, first I want to thank you for writing an article on this topic. I've been trying to find an adequate response to my issue, but no success. I read the article, however, I'm not sure quite sure how to fix this issue without breaking something? šŸ™‚ Could you please take a look and give me some advice?
    Second, your Mixed Analytics Audit Tool is a real blessing! I'm using it for a while now, and it has helped me tons! Thanks a lot!
    Cheers!

    • Hey Mina, thanks so much for your comment. Made my day šŸ™‚
      I checked your site and you have GA installed via both GTM and GA at the same time, which double counts page views. I suggest leaving your GTM version and removing your other GA script.
      Since you're using WordPress you'd need to check all the places GA could be installed: the plugin list, header file, or theme options.
      If you send me WordPress login details I can take a look and tell you exactly what needs to be changed.

      • Hi Ana, thank you for your quick answer as well as for the information you've provided.
        The thing is that I accidentally realized that I had this issue on my site. Then I tried to find a solution and found your article. I knew I needed to fix it, but was somehow unsure how to do it.
        Instead of asking, I left it aside thinking I'd fix it later, completely forgot that I haven't done it yet, which resulted in Google disabling my Adsense account today due to invalid traffic.
        So, I'd greatly appreciate your help! I'm going to send you my login details right now.

  18. Ana, you are a star!!! I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that it was being fired via All-in-one SEO plugin!!! I completely, COMPLETELY overlooked it! And I was having such a hard time trying to fix it myself, that I couldn't see the wood for the trees, so I gave it up! Luckily, we have you! Thanks a lot! I really appreciate your help! Couldn't have made it without you for sure!

    • Hi Alex, I checked your site with the GA debugger and see 2 pageview calls: one with gtm1 and one with gtm2. That means you have 2 pageview tags being set in GTM, so you just need to log in to GTM, navigate to the Tags list, and delete one of your pageview tags. Typically a pageview tag will have have Type = Google Analytics - Universal Analytics.

  20. Hi, I'm seeing the same error on my site (https://advanced-homehealthcare.com/). When I take a look through GA Debugger and Developer Tools I'm seeing multiple GA pageview tags being fired from within the page template. But I cannot for the life of me figure out where it's coming from. Any suggestions?

    • Hi Stacie, I'd start with your plugins, since I see the text "Google Analytics Tracking by Google Analyticator" in your source code. Test disabling the Google Analyticator plugin entirely and reloading the page-- if your GA tracking entirely disappears, you'll know Google Analyticator is setting GA twice and you need to adjust your plugin settings. If GA tracking starts firing just once, then it means you were previously setting GA from 2 different locations, and now the issue is resolved.

      If it has no effect at all, you will need to keep looking among your plugins and theme files. (I can help with that if you send me your WordPress login credentials to take a look.)

      Let me know how it goes!

  21. Anna hi! Thanks a lot for this awesome article. It helps to find and solved an issue with the welcome screen. Thanks for it!

    Anyway, I still have a question.
    Analytics implemented by GTM

    1. The gtm1 and gtm2
    For the "welcome" screen, I add the Tag = "event. welcome"
    Tag: Track type = Event
    Trigger: Some Window Loaded Events when URL contains "welcome"

    if the Trigger is disabled I see on the page only gtm1, if the trigger is working I have gtm1 and gtm2 with next settings.

    Running command: ga("create", "UA-GAID-1", {name: "gtm2", cookieDomain: "auto"})
    Running command: ga("gtm2.set", "&gtm", "2wg2GTM-ID")
    Running command: ga("gtm2.set", "nonInteraction", false)
    Running command: ga("gtm2.set", "hitCallback", [function])
    Running command: ga("gtm2.send", {hitType: "event", eventCategory: "welcome", eventAction: "impression", eventLabel: undefined, eventValue: undefined})

    Is it correct because i add an event with pageview?

    • hey Andrey, thanks for the comment! That looks correct to me, GTM will create new tracker names whenever a tag fires.

  22. Hello,Ana! My name is Ana too šŸ™‚ I am installed Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics and the Tag Assistant says that i have the same ID tracked twice and that i have Multiples Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics Installations... I have been trying to fix this but i don't know how...Can you help me?My URL is http://www.anacastilho.com.Thank you!

    • Hi Ana! The problem is that you have both on-site GA code (gtag.js) and Google Tag Manager running on your site. Since you're using WordPress, you have likely added GA tracking code via a GA plugin -- you'll need to look through your list of plugins, check their settings, and remove your extra GA tracking. If you can't find it, feel free to email me login info to your WordPress account and I can check it for you.

  23. Hello! Thank you for your reply. I started to add the code to the Theme editor but then i removed and now i only have it through Insert Headers and Footers Plugin,I removed the GTM and GA Plugins. But there's still an error. Ok,i will.Thank you

    • Yup, I still see the code on your site twice. Make sure you've removed all your GA instances except one.

  24. Yes, but I don't know how to remove it. It says that I have Multiple TA and GTM installations.

    • Unfortunately I can't get more specific because every WordPress theme and plugins are different. Feel free to email me login info to your WordPress account if you'd like me to take a look.

  25. I fixed the error but now it says that I have Non-Standard-Implementation on Google Analytics, and i am not sure that my GTM container is published... Not sure that both GA and GTM are working correctly...

    • You can safely ignore the non-standard implementation error message. I rechecked your site and all looks good to me now.

    • In your page source you can see DuracellTomi's Google Tag Manager for WordPress plugin as well as the GA script directly on the page. Just remove one of those and you should be good!

    • I just checked your site and confirmed it's not being tracked twice. I checked Tag Assistant and don't see any error message there either, are you still seeing it?

  31. Hi Ana, tried to go through all above explained steps but still couldn't figure out the problem. Tag Assistant also shows "Same web property ID is tracked twice." Can you maybe take a look at our site? https://www.rinn.net/mein-garten.html And: Best article I found concerning this topic! Thank you!

    • Hi there, I appreciate your comment! Unfortunately your case can't be resolved by the above steps because you're using a custom version of Google Analytics. From what I can tell by viewing your page source, your GA code is wrapped in a function that checks if the user has accepted cookies or not, and there's a problem with this function causing it to fire twice. So your code isn't on the page twice, it's just that the same code is being triggered twice. Since you're using the third party tool Cookiebot, I suggest reaching out to them or checking their documentation at https://support.cookiebot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003813893-Controlling-Google-Analytics-Universal-with-Cookiebot to make sure you've implemented their version of GA correctly.

    • Hi Ɩmer, yep, now I see it. In the GA debugger I see GA firing three times on those pages: twice through GTM and once through the gtag script directly on the page. If you click Ctrl-U, you can see why: you have the GTM script on the page twice (in the header and again in the footer), as well as the gtag script at the top of the page. You need to remove all but one of those scripts, and then your GA tracking will only fire once.

    • I checked and don't see any issue. If you haven't already fixed it, can you please link me directly to the URL where you're experiencing the issue?

    • I think I got it (fingers crossed) I deactivated WP plug-in. I was nervous that since GTM tags reference analytics it would disrupt the data flow. Gosh this is confusing!

    • Hey Ali! I checked your site and see that you have multiple page view tags firing via GTM. From what I can tell, the problem is that you have a regular page view as well as an enhanced ecommerce product detail page view firing on the same page. You can resolve this by logging into your GTM account and blocking the regular page view from firing on product detail pages (you can do that with a blocking trigger). Alternately, you could modify your regular page view tag so that it passes through the enhanced ecommerce data on product detail pages, but the specifics of this will depend on your setup. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

    • If you open up Dev Tools and filter by 'pageview' you can see that GTM is sending 2 pageview hits on each page. So you'll need to log into GTM and remove one of your extra pageview tags. If you only see 1 pageview tag, make sure it doesn't have extra triggers applied to it that would cause it to fire more than once.

  39. Hello Ana! I found this information very helpful! I am also getting a "Same web property ID is tracked twice." error on my site: allinmusicfest.com
    I use wordpress, I have the Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsight on installed and I also use the actual Google Analytics page to analyze my data. Does this mean that I should uninstall or deactivate the plug in version in order to get better quality data and no "double recordings"? Thank you!

      • Hey Jessica, I checked your site and you have 2 versions of GA running at the same time. One is through MonsterInsight, and one is through a gtag script directly on the page. So you will need to remove one of them to prevent double-counting (it doesn't matter which one, unless you're using specific tracking functions from one or the other).
        As for with or without the www, no issues there. Your site has a redirect in place so all traffic will be sent to the same version of the site and tracked together.

  40. Hi Ana Thanks so much for the reply! I feel much more reassured. Now I only get a "Non-standard implementation" comment when I run a check. To my understanding this is not an issue but advice? Have you seen this before?

    • Yup, I checked and all looks good now! No worries about the "non-standard implementation" error, this is a common error message and can safely be ignored if the tags are firing correctly (and they are).

  41. Hi Ana, thanks for the helpful article. I had MonsterInsights and deactivated it on my site. Still, Tag Assistant says I'm double tracking. Could you help?

    • Hey Larry, I only see one instance of GA firing on your site. If you're still seeing an issue, could you please link the exact page?

      • It's working fine now! Not sure if viewing the site while logged into WP caused that issue. Thanks again for offering such a resource for us.

    • The problem is you have a GA script (Global Site Tag) on the site and are also running GA through Google Tag Manager. I recommend removing the GA script from your site and tracking through GTM only. Since you're using WordPress, you'll need to check your plugins and theme files to see where the GA script is being added.

  43. Ana, It is Very Useful Post For Me...Its Help Me 100%....Thanks a lot Ana for Sharing This Information.

  44. Hi Anne, your blog is really nice and informative but I have still a problem with my GA for https://www.herbalcart.com/
    I have found a 0.16% bounce rate for this week and I think that is not true.
    I have also found the warning "Multiple installations of Global site tag (gtag.js) detected" via Google tag manager (Chrome Extention)
    Please let me know what should I do. (i have not installed google tag manager yet)
    Thanks

    • Hi Jeff, correct, your bounce rate isn't actually .16%. It's exactly related to the error message you're seeing, since you have 2 installations of GA tracking. This means every pageview gets double counted, and since every visit automatically has 2 page views, GA counts it as ~zero bounces (since a bounce is a single page view).
      To fix this issue, you need to remove one instance of your GA tracking code. It looks like you're using WordPress, so you'll need to check your Woocommerce options, your theme options, and plugins to determine where you've added the code twice.

    • I checked your setup -- it's a little hard to see what's going on because you have so many tags and trackers firing, you're firing multiple events on a single page view, and you're using custom names for your tracker and data layer (that's why the troubleshooting steps above don't work for you). So as a general step I'd suggest stripping your implementation down to the essentials and sticking to a standard implementation, you can add in complexity later.

      With that said, I do see GA firing twice on some pages, e.g. /signup/menu, and both are coming out of your GTM container. So to resolve you'll need to log into GTM and look for either multiple UA Pageview tags or a single pageview tag with multiple triggers.

  46. Hey Ana, I have same problem again. We create some events tracking for our website with GTM but we are getting same web property ID is tracked twice error. We create GA tags with GTM and some pageview events. How can I fix that?

    Here our website: https://www.724ihale.com

  47. Hey Ana, really sorry to add to this long list of sites to check but Im having problems too. Spent ages trying to work out where the second call is coming from. It should all be done through GTM. https://www.tamiyaclub.com if you could point me in the right direction that would be great

    • Hey Chris, no need to apologize, I enjoy checking out all the sites šŸ˜€
      In this case it looks like your second call is coming from Cloudflare. Can you try logging into your Cloudflare settings and checking if the GA app is enabled? I believe this is the link: https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/google-analytics.
      If it's enabled (I think it is), just disable it and you should be back to a single tracking call.
      Let me know how it goes!
      Ana

    • Hi Steven, I checked your site and it looks like you have both the gtag and Google Tag Manager scripts placed on your site. Just remove your gtag script to prevent tracking twice.

    • Hey Ania, both your pageviews are being sent from GTM. That means you need to log into your GTM container and check your page view tag(s). The issue will be either because you have 2 pageview tags, or because you have 2 different triggers for a single pageview tag, causing it to fire twice.

  51. Hello Ana,
    First, I want to thank you for your post! I see you kindly devote yourself to help people as much as you can. it's so valuable from you.
    In fact, I tried all the steps and confused already. Please can you check and let me know what I need to do: https://smarthomenest.com
    Thanks in advance so much.
    Edmon

    • Hi Edmon, thank you for the kind words! I appreciate that.
      I checked your site and the issue is that you have the gtag script on your site twice, causing the GA tracking script to double fire. It looks like the top script has been added via a WordPress plugin called Alidropship GA Enhanced Ecommerce plugin, while the bottom one has been entered somewhere in your theme. So just remove one of those and you should beĀ good to go.

      • Thanks again greatly Ana.
        Now you made me clear what was the cause.

        Just would like to ask whether this cause is serious problem if I leave them as they are, since both are essential for me. Will it affect to my overall website performance?
        Thanks!

      • Yep, unfortunately you need to choose one or the other. If you leave both, GA will fire twice for every page view, double-counting pageviews and causing an inaccurate bounce rate calculation.

    • There are 2 main possibilities for duplicate tags in GTM:
      1) You have 2 separate pageview tags. To check for this, look down your list of tags for tags of type 'Google Analytics: Universal Analytics'. You'll need to click into these tags and see if you have more than one tag with Track type = Page View.
      2) The other possibility is that you have 1 pageview tag, but the tag has 2 different triggers. Look for your 'Google Analytics: Universal Analytics' page view tag, and make sure it is only attached to a single trigger.

    • I checked and found you have both Universal Analytics and the Global Site Tag scripts on your site. Those are 2 different Google Analytics scripts, so you should only use one and not both.
      Separately, your site also contains the Google Tag Manager script, but you don't seem to be running Google Analytics through that. I've included a screenshot via email.
      If you've only set up basic page tracking so far, I'd remove both Universal Analytics and Global Site Tag from your site, and then re-implement GA via Google Tag Manager. This is generally the best solution, unless you've already implemented custom tracking via one of your other tracking scripts (since then there would be some effort required to re-implement).

    • Hi Daniele, I checked your site and see GA tracking via a Google Tag Manager plugin (Google Tag Manager for WordPress by gtm4wp.com) as well as a Google Analytics plugin (Monster Insights).To address this, you should disable one of these plugins. It doesn't really matter which one, unless you prefer one over the other.

    • I checked your site and see GA tracking code script as well as the GTM script. You can see this by clicking Ctrl-U to view the page source. To resolve this, remove your Google Analytics script so you fire GA from GTM only.

    • Hey Adam, I checked your site. The thank you page has the tag firing twice from within GTM, which usually means that you have 2 page view tags. I suspect you've set 1 tag to fire on all pages, and 1 tag to fire on the thank you page, so the thank you page gets tracked from both tags. Can you check in GTM and make sure you only have a single pageview tag? Or, if you use multiple page view tags, make sure you add in the appropriate blocking triggers or conditions. Let me know if that makes sense.

  59. Hi Ana,

    I know a website has the same GA ID twice, I was wondering if the hard coded GA code is removed (only leaving the code deployed by GTM), will past data in Google Analytics be affected/corrected or will the inflated pageviews and low bounce rate remain? Thanks.

    • Hey Chris! When you make a change to the GA code code, only new data will be affected. All the old data will remain the same.

  60. Hi Ana,

    I get the error from Tag Assistant, but when checking for 'pageview' in the console, there are no 'send pageview' instances. Note that GA Debug is ON.

    Do you know why that may be?

    Thank you

    • I checked your site and think the GA debugger doesn't work for you because you're using a non-standard self-hosted version of Google Analytics (via the ExactMetrics plugin). The script is usually hosted on GA's servers, not on your own. I don't think the GA debugger can recognize calls that aren't to Google's servers, so it doesn't work on your site. I'd check why you're hosting your own version of GA, since that's pretty uncommon. But for now, since you can't use the debugger, you can just look at your Real-time reports to figure out what's happening. When you load on a page, do you see 2 pageviews recorded in real time? If so, make sure you've set GA to fire through the plugin OR through Google Tag Manager, not both.

  61. Great article. Thanks so much for this great, informative post. I was able to diagnose the source back to an error in our GTM configuration.

    • No, you won't get double pageviews here because your GA script in the source code doesn't include the line that actually sends the tag: ga('send', 'pageview');

    • Wow, you've added the GA code not just twice, but three times :p I see GA code firing through an on-page Universal Analytics script, an on-page gTag script, and through GTM. I think you're using Magento, right? Make sure you've disabled default GA tracking and any GA tracking plugins, and fire GA through Google Tag Manager only.

  64. Hi, great post.

    What do you think is happening with my site: ludovicmarchand.com/masterclass-gratuite

    It seems that there are 2 Google manager tags firing but I can't seem to understand why...

    • Hey there, your site has 3 pageview tags being set from within GTM. Look down your list of tags for tags of type = Google Analytics: Universal Analytics, and click into them to find the ones firing pageview tags (should be IDs #34, #4, and #23).Delete any extra pageview tags and make sure you're using the right tag type (it looks like you're firing a pageview tag on button clicks, when it should be an event tag).

    • Hi there, I checked your site and you have ga('send','pageview'); entered twice in your page source. This causes the pageviews to be sent twice. To resolve, remove the second send pageview command. I've emailed you with screenshots of the two for your reference.

  67. Thank you!
    This guide helped me tremendously! I couldn't figure it out halfway through. Then I discovered a GA code buried in my Theme's default options I had set up aeons ago..!
    Thanks so much!!

    • Hi there, you have both the gtag script and GTM firing on your site. GA needs to be implemented through just one of these methods, not both, so remove one of the scripts (or remove the GA tag from GTM) to fix this issue.

      • You're using WordPress right? So there are many places you could be firing GA code from -- it's not just header.php, you'll need to hunt through your plugins and theme files too. The post has some tips and screenshots showing where to look in WordPress (please check Step 4).

    • There is something very weird with your implementation. It seems you have a script that loads and reloads the GA tag every few seconds, so just remaining on the page without doing anything at all will fire about 10 pageviews a minute. You can see this with the GA debugger plugin. I can't see all your site code to know how this is happening, so basically you need your web developer to look at this and remove the auto-firing code.

  70. Hi Ana,

    One of the clients I am working on is having this error message appear when I check Google Tag Assistant, however I went through all your really helpful steps and still could not find the problem. Would you be able to take a look for me and have a look

    The link is - https://www.cipfa.org/

    • Hey Harry, the GA Debugger shows that tags are firing via on-page code and via GTM. So to fix this, just remove the ga('send', 'pageview'); call from your onsite code.

  71. We are having this same issue, but I'm not sure where to start fixing this issue. I know we use GTM to add GA to the site and we use WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration plugin to get ecommerce tracking going on https://www.crystalstar.com/. Is the plugin causing this issue?

    Without the plugin we won't get any ecommerce data. Could there be a box I shouldn't tick on the plugin settings that would remedy this issue do you know or should I try to add GA ecommerce tracking data layer code manually and delete the WordPress plugin?

      • I'm trying unchecking a few boxes in the plugin to see if it fixes the issue while allowing us to still get ecommerce data. I may need to do what you suggest - disable the GA code in GTM - I'm concerned this may break other tags that rely on the GA code.

      • Changed my mind. Going to disable the GA code tag in GTM and use the WP ecommerce plugin to insert the GA code instead. Will monitor the next few days.

      • I think that's a good idea. It's usually better to keep all your GA logic in one place rather than mixing and matching between 2 systems. Your plugin is designed for GA, so you don't need to roll your own implementation with GTM.
        Let me know how it goes!

  72. Hi Ana, I have this problem on my website as well. It is exactly like number 7 on step #1. I checked my GTM and there is no second GA tag in there. I had it in the past but I removed these from tagmanager today. I know there is a hardcoded GA tracking code in there, but that one is tracked as t0. My website is: https://en.leadingcourses.com/. Do you have any idea what goes wrong here?

    • Hey Sebas, there is still a GA pageview tag firing from GTM-MMNQVK9, I can see it from the dev tools console. Please double-check that youā€™ve fully removed or paused your GA tags in GTM (or remove your hardcoded GA tracking code).Ā  You can click Tags > Sort by Type and look down the list for 'Google Analytics: Universal Analytics'.

      • Hi An, thanks for the quick reply. I know what you mean, however, I wanted to merge the hardcoded GA tracking code in GTM. So I know we are double-counting right now. The problem is that next to T0 (so the harcoded code) there is also a GTM1 AND a GTM2. And I don't know why this GTM2 is there? Because it should only be GTM1 as that is the only trigger fired via Tagmanager right now.

      • You only have pageview tags firing from one GTM container (plus the hardcoded GA code). Are you referring to GTM-T6QPF2P? That one isn't firing any GA tags so you don't need to worry about it, but if you want to know what it is, it looks like it's the container ID for your Optimize tag. Does that help clarify?

    • I see 2 pageviews from GTM, so just log into GTM and remove one of your pageview tags (or make sure your pageview tag only has a single trigger).

    • Hi there, looks like you're using a GA plugin from MonsterInsights as well as Google Tag Manager for WordPress by gtm4wp.com. So just disable one of those to resolve this.

      • So hearing your advice, I promptly deactivated the MonsterInsights and Google Tag Manager plugins.

        Then I manually inserted the Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager code in the header.php file.

        Now it seems ok with no conflicts, except the google tag assistant flags one suggestion as - Non-standard implementation.

      • Glad you figured it out! Though you actually can use those plugins, it would be fine as long as you disabled one of them. When you manually install header code, you might run into an issue later when you update your theme, because the header file can get overwritten if you aren't using child themes.

  75. Thank you! This solved an issue that we were having in our Analytics reports. Bounce rates were incorrect and we indeed had the analytics code twice on our site.

  76. Hi Anna, love your content. Its very helpful! I have two related questions. Im dealing with a site where I need to deploy two different GA properties via GTM but I don't want it to cause issues. I'm planning on changing the tracker name of one of them, and then since I need to send the same events to both I guess I'll need to duplicate event tracking tags? Also, to avoid confusion, I was thinking on using workspaces for each of those properties. Does this sound like a good approach? I cant inject JS if not I'd be using customTask : (

    Thanks for the help in advance.

    • Thanks, Rafael! Too bad you can't use customTask, that's the best solution here. As an alternative, yes, I think you'll need to duplicate your event tracking tags, attaching each set to the right GA property ID.
      I don't think you need to change the tracker name, though, that shouldn't make a difference. And the workspaces are only temporary, so that won't help either, since once you publish all your tags will be merged into the main Default workspace. So just make sure to use a good naming system and/or Folders so you can readily differentiate them.

    • Sorry, I get a repeated "Tu IP fue bloqueada por el firewall del servidor" message when I try to access that page.

    • This site is running GTM and on-page GA, you can see it by clicking right-click> View page source. Delete the on-page GA to resolve this.

  79. Hi Ana! My site is at https://www.jacksheo.com

    If a user keys in the URL without the "www", the user will be redirected to the version with "www".

    This then causes google tag assistant to flag "same web property ID is tracked twice".

    Tag assistant does not complain if the user enters "www".

    Should I be concerned about this? Will this cause google analytics to double count?

    Thank you for taking the time to read! šŸ™‚

    • Hey Jack, I just tried many times and couldnā€™t get tags to re-fire as you described. In my tests, I only saw the tag fire once. So it looks OK to me, but itā€™s definitely weird that youā€™re receiving that message, and could indicate an issue. Can you please check your reports in GA and look for an abnormally low (<30%) bounce rate on the homepage? That could indicate that tags are double-firing and artificially depressing bounce rate. Also, can you check what type of redirect your site has in place? Server-side redirects should be fine, as they occur before the first page has a chance to load (so there's no chance to trigger tracking code), but JavaScript redirects could cause this type of issue. Ā 

  80. Hi Ana -

    I am having issues with my site. The GA Debug program says my tag is firing twice (ga) and (gtm3.send). I went in and deleted Tag Manager completely from our site but I am still seeing the message (we don't use it much currently). Can you assist? https://www.breakthroughfuel.com/

    • Hey there, I just hit right-click > View page source on your site and see 2 scripts for GTM and one for onsite GA code. You can find these by viewing the source and searching for the strings "GTM" and "UA-9".

  81. Ana, thanks so much for this post. It was so useful. I would have not been able to fix my double tracking without it. I was using monsterinsights pluging on my wordpress.

  82. Hi Ana,
    I have seen 2 page view requests via Debugger:
    analytics_debug.js:25 Running command: ga("gtm9.send", "pageview")
    analytics_debug.js:25 Running command: ga("gtag_UA_133021265_1.send", "pageview",

    The problem is, I can find only Google Tag Manager script inside the page source & Source section at the Developer's tools. What could be the problem here?

    My website: https://gepard.io/

    • Hi there, I see both GTM and gtag when I view the source for this site. I sent you a screenshot. Please check and remove one of those scripts to prevent GA from double-firing.

    • I checked andĀ don't see the "same web property is tracked twice" error message, have you changed something? I do see "Code found outside of head tag", which means exactly what it sounds like, your GA code is outside of your head tag. It will still work, but you should place it inside the head tag at the top of the page for improved accuracy. You can see this by clicking Ctrl-U to view your page source and searching for "UA-", you'll find your GA script all the way at the bottom of the page instead of at the top.

      • Thank you..No Ana till now I didn't change anything on our website, now I checked but that error has occurred, please check it

  84. I appreciate you insights and found this article very helpful. Unfortunately, I have not been able to resolve my issue. I have "gtm1.send, pageview" appearing twice similar to Step 7 but both instances are exactly the same. No gtm1 and gtm2. We just installed GTM and currently just have 3 tags in it. One for universal Google Analytics and the other two are custom HTML tags from vendors for tracking marketing campaigns. I thought we might have accidentally installed the GTM code twice, but it was added through a third party plugin and I'm only seeing the typical installation style in the code. I'm at a lose as to what to try next or where the issue lies. Would you mind taking a look? https://cncc.edu/

    • Hi Reuben, I checked out this site. It looks to me like GTM itself is firing twice, once from the parent site and once from inside the cncc iframe. I came to this conclusion because in the dev tools console, I see GTM twice instead of once like usual. Also, if you check the dev tools Sources tab, you can see GTM firing a few times from different locations. So I think GTM has either been added both in and out of the iframe, or it is somehow getting called twice. I can't really see anything more specific than that, but I hope that helps point you in the right direction.

      • Thank you. That does help confirm my suspicions. I believe the issue is with the plugin used to install the GTM code. My web team says that is the only way the GTM code was added. Fingers crossed turning off the current plugin and installing a different one will fix the issue. If not, we may need to just hard code GTM into the site to fix the issue.

    • Hi there, I checked your site and you have implemented GA both directly and through GTM. You can see it by typing "pageview" into the dev tools console. If you search for your tracking ID in dev tools, you can see that GA tracking is being set through Cloudflare. So, you can disable your GA script in Cloudflare to resolve this issue.

  86. Hi Ana

    Our page view firing twice in GA has been a long-standing problem and we seem to have fallen into a hole of 'check with your plugin developer, check with your theme developer', and so forth until we have run out of things to check.

    We cannot find the source of the double-entry in GA for page views. We have changed our SEO software and it does not do the UA-id entry for us. We only have one plugin injecting analytics but this is also new. No code is entered into the current theme we use, only Ad publisher since 2015.

    We used to have a GTM container in draft but it was deleted 3-4 days ago as a precaution. However, we are still seeing a blue Global SIte tag showing up in tag manager. We used WP Rocket but cleaned the cache many times. We do use the GA add on for ache busting but we updated the cache and still no change.

    Same problem every time when we check. If you can find the magic offending script doing it that would be priceless for us. We have run out of every angle to find the offending code.

    cheers

    • "Hi there, I checked your site and you have implemented GA both directly and through GTM. You can see it by typing ā€œpageviewā€ into the dev tools console. If you search for your tracking ID in dev tools, you can see that GA tracking is being set through Cloudflare. So, you can disable your GA script in Cloudflare to resolve this issue."

      This - double-checked and found a deprecated app from GA still active. Now gone šŸ™‚

      • Oh, I was just about to check your site and help you out -- but it looks like you've resolved it yourself. Congrats šŸ˜€
        The only weird thing I see is that you are self-hosting the GA snippet. The snippet should normally read "https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js" but instead it's pointing to your own site. Generally, it's not a good idea to self-host GA as it will load more slowly (since it's not cached from otherĀ sites) and won't include any improvements or security patches that GA includes in their standard hosted JS version.

    • Hi there, you have 2 pageview tags firing from a single GTM container. This means your pageview tag either has 2 triggers, or you have 2 separate pageview tags in your container. To resolve this problem, make sure you only have 1 pageview tag & trigger in your container.

      • Solved Ana! i have a problem in a specific page of my website now....

        Multiple Google Analytics tags detected, how i can solve this issues?

        Thank you!

      • Hey Marco, awesome, glad you resolved it. As for this new error, I'm not seeing the new message anywhere, but in general, 'Multiple Google Analytics tags detected' is not an issue, because it means you're sending tags to different GA accounts (so there's no double-counting).

      • Thanks for your response Ana, I wanted to delete it since I don't remember the analytics account....
        Is there an alternative way to do it?

      • I'm not sure I understand your question, but if you want to delete your extra GA code, you need to delete the script from your website. Since you're using WordPress, the script could be located in a plugin, in your header.php file, or in some other theme file, so you'll need to look through those to find where you've added it.Ā 

  88. Hi there ,
    I am experiencing a very low bounce rate of around 1% and also the page views are extremely high.

    Can you please have a look into my site :
    electronicsguide4u.com

    I already know that the track code is present in header.php of my theme , but dont know the other location

    • It looks like you're using a custom GA script that includes the ga('send', 'pageview'); push twice, causing the code to double fire. Please have your developers check and edit this file, or use a standard script/plugin instead of a custom implementation.

  90. Hi Ana
    Thanks so much for your post. I'm getting the tracked twice message. I can see the code is in the head of my website but I am not sure which bit to remove. Could you advise?
    Many Thanks

    • Hey Roman, your site seems to be using both gtag and GTM for GA implementation. To resolve this, choose one or the other, not both. Since your site is built on WordPress, you'll need to look through your plugins to remove your extra script.

  91. Hi Ana

    Thanks so much for your post. Iā€™m getting the ā€œSame web property ID is tracked twiceā€ in google tag assistant extention checker. Could you advise?

    Many Thanks

    • If you type in 'pageview' to the GA debugger you can see that you're running both GTM and gTag at the same time, so just remove one of those to resolve the issue.

    • Thereā€™s something weird about that page, but Iā€™m not quite sure what it is. In the dev tools console I see gtag firing multiple times, each time with a parameter like ?dbg=3957 appended to the end, so it seems related to some kind of cache-busting setup, like custom cache-busting code forcing gtag to reload, or maybe a cache-busting setting via Cloudfront. I canā€™t see anything more specific than that though so Iā€™m afraid youā€™ll need to dig into your codebase.Ā Ā 

      • You can see the dbg parameter in the Network tab of the dev tools console (click F12 to open it). Another possibility is that you're loading some module within the page that itself calls GA, like maybe one of the ad modules in the sidebar. I noticed your homepage doesn't fire multiple GA tags, can you check what's different between that page and this one?

    • It looks like your GA script contains ga('send', 'pageview'); twice, which causes the script to fire twice. I suggest replacing this GA script with a different or updated version of the GA tracking code.

    • I checked and you have 2 pageview tags firing from a single GTM container. This means your pageview tag either has 2 triggers, or you have 2 separate pageview tags in your container. To resolve this problem, log into Google Tag Manager and make sure you have only one pageview tag & one trigger in your container.

    • You have 3 different methods of installing Google Analytics on your site: global site tag, universal analytics, and Google Tag Manager. Since you're using prestashop, I would just use their built-in GA tracking and remove the others, unless you have some specific reason to configure it yourself.

      • Hi Ana , thanks for your reply.
        At first we use built-in GA tracking from prestashop, then add in the GTM and recently we added enhanced ecommerce code, please advise which one we should remove or keep?

      • Sorry, I can't really answer that since it depends on your specific setup and what you're looking to accomplish.Ā But in general, if you're using an Enhanced Ecommerce plugin, follow their implementation instructions to make sure you don't duplicate tracking with Prestashop's built-in GA tracking. And you can probably remove any GA tags from GTM, since it sounds like you're already tracking GA elsewhere.

  98. Hi, I got this problem too.
    Can you please check my website? https://cartalog.id
    since this website built with SPA (single pages application) using React.js & Node.js

    or maybe you can suggest other tools that recommended by Google to identify jaavascript pages?

    Big thanks, dude

  99. Hello there,

    could you check my website, because I have the same problem. "Same web property id tracked twice"
    I use Prestashop and have built-in GA module. https://e-printmania.pl
    Today I was setting up my Analytics and GTM. What can I do to fix this?

    • I actually see three GA pageviews on your site. It looks like they come from:
      1) Prestashop's built-in GA module
      2) an second GA script ga('send', 'pageview'); that causes your GA tracking to fire twice
      3) GTM

      You should remove GA tracking from GTM, and remove the extra GA snippet

    • If you view the source of your site (hit Ctrl-U to view) and search for "UA-", you can see the script has been added to your page twice, just remove one of those to resolve the issue.

    • Sorry, I'm unable to view the source of your site, it seems Developer Tools is blocked. But basically you'll need to find where you've added GA twice and remove one of those instances.

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