1) Setup and configure data collection

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Key Takeaways
Never assume that Google Analytics is tracking the data that is important to you.
Testing Google Analytics requires no special technical skills.
Using the real time report is the easiest way to test if GA actually collects your most valuable data. But it is not always reliable.
Make it a habit to test GA immediately after you change anything in your account. Or whenever you get a headache from weird or missing data in your reports.
How to test if everything in Google Analytics is engineer data working correctly?
Testing if Google Analytics is working as it should, is the easiest with the real time report. There are just three steps involved:

GA collects tons of data automatically, but not everything. Before you test anything, make sure that whatever you want to check is enabled, configured, linked or installed.

For example, GA4 can collect search terms but you need to activate Site Search in the enhanced measurement settings. If that is not the case, you will waste your precious time.

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2) Go to your website and take an action
First, make sure you give GA consent to collect data. That can include:

Clicking on the “Yeah, yeah, yeah you can collect my data” button of a cookie banner.
Disabling anti tracker software.