Why your analytics broke after a website redesign
A redesign is the single most common way tracking silently disappears. New templates, new URLs and a fresh codebase mean the tags, triggers and data layer that fed your analytics often simply do not come across with the new site.
What gets lost in a rebuild
- The tags themselves: GA4 and GTM snippets that lived in the old theme are not in the new one.
- The data layer: the structured values your purchase and lead tags read from are gone or renamed, so events fire with no value.
- Changed URLs: conversion rules tied to a
/thank-youpage break when the path changes. - New consent tool that now blocks tags the old one allowed.
How to spot it fast
Check GA4 Realtime right after launch: if it is empty, the base tag did not survive. Watch for a sudden drop to zero on launch day, and use DebugView to see whether events arrive at all. A sudden conversion drop dated to the relaunch is the classic signature.
The fix checklist
Reinstall the GTM container, rebuild the data layer on the new templates, repoint conversion triggers at the new URLs or events, re-verify the consent wiring, then test every key conversion end to end before calling it done. The safest approach is to plan tracking into the redesign, not rediscover it afterwards, which is exactly what a pre-launch tracking health check covers.
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