What Is Organic Traffic in Google Analytics 4?

Organic traffic refers to website visits that come from organic (unpaid) search results.

When someone looks up “how to make vegan pasta” using a search engine and clicks on the link to go to a website, this counts as organic traffic.

The main difference between direct and organic traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the referral source.

“A session is processed as direct traffic when no information about the referral source is available, or when the referring source or search term has been configured to be ignored,” according to Google.

In other words, direct traffic doesn’t have a referral source. But organic traffic does.

GA4 tracks organic traffic from numerous search engines, including Google and Bing. Which you can see in the report below (check the “Session source” column):

“Session source” column highlighted in GA4 report

Organic traffic is important because:

Plus, organic traffic is free.

But this comes with a caveat.

You need to first implement organic SEO techniques—including keyword research, on-page optimization, and much more—to attract organic traffic. And these efforts require time and money if you want to execute them well.

But once you do rank at the top of the search results, you can expect a steady stream of traffic to your website for months or even years. So, your efforts will likely pay off.

Organic Traffic in GA4 vs. Organic Traffic in Universal Analytics

Universal Analytics (UA) was the previous version of Google Analytics. And it was incredibly popular among marketers.

But on July 1, 2023, all UA properties stopped processing data. This marked the official shift from UA to GA4.

There are many differences between GA4 and UA. And they also apply to organic traffic and metrics you’ll use to analyze it.

Let’s start by comparing the differences between key metrics in GA4 and UA.

Users	UA had just “Total Users” and “New Users.” GA4 includes an “Active Users” metric, which refers to users who had an engaged session on your website—meaning your site was their primary focus.
Pageviews	UA had “Pageviews” and “Unique Pageviews” as metrics. GA4 only has “Views.” This metric refers to the number of webpages/screens users viewed, including repeat views.
Sessions	UA measured “Sessions” (a metric that starts when a user opens a page on your site and ends after 30 minutes of inactivity). And all sessions restarted at midnight. (A new session began if a user was using your website at midnight.) GA4 also uses this metric but doesn’t restart them at midnight. It also doesn’t trigger a new session when it spots new campaign parameters.
Conversions	UA had “Goals” to track user actions and counted one conversion per session for each goal. So, if a user completed the same goal multiple times during a session, it would count as one conversion. GA4 uses “Conversion events” to track conversions and will typically count multiple conversions within the same session.
Bounce rate	In UA, “Bounce rate” refers to the percentage of sessions when users saw only one page and didn’t trigger any other events. Like clicking on a link. In GA4, this metric refers to sessions that don’t count as engaged sessions. An engaged session lasts more than 10 seconds, creates one or more conversions, or leads to two or more screen or page views.