WordPress: Migrate from GA4 to Plausible (Step-by-Step)

Why WordPress is its own playbook

WordPress runs ~43% of the web, but GA4 lives in three different places depending on how it was installed: the official Site Kit plugin, MonsterInsights, or theme-level header injection. Each cleans up differently. Skip the wrong one and you’ll dual-tag forever without realising.

Pre-flight

1. Find every GA4 install. Open Chrome DevTools → Sources → search “G-” across all loaded scripts. You should find the Measurement ID once, not three times. If multiple — note where each comes from.
2. Identify the install method: Site Kit (Plugins → installed list), MonsterInsights (Plugins), or theme-direct (check `header.php` or theme custom-code field).
3. Backup database before plugin changes. WP-CLI: wp db export pre-migration.sql.

Step-by-step

1. Install Plausible WordPress plugin (Day 1)

Install Plausible Analytics — Privacy Friendly Analytics from the WP plugin directory. Free, official, MIT.

<br />
wp plugin install plausible-analytics –activate<br />

Configure: Settings → Plausible Analytics → enter your domain. Enable “Use a self-hosted version” if you proxy through `/stats/`. Enable “Track 404 pages” and “Outbound links” — these are free goals.

2. Configure custom events (Day 1–2)

The plugin has a “Custom Events” section. Add the goals you want tracked. Common WordPress goals:

• Comment submitted (selector: #commentform [type=submit])
• Newsletter signup (form selector or class)
• WooCommerce purchase (handled separately — see WooCommerce recipe)
• Contact form 7 / Gravity Forms / Formidable submissions

3. Dual-tag (Days 2–14)

Leave GA4 running in parallel for two weeks. Compare daily with the Parallel-Run Validator.

4. Cleanup phase — the WordPress-specific work (Day 14)

This is where most teams fail. Cleanup must be in this order:

If GA4 was via Site Kit:

<br />
# In wp-admin: Site Kit → Analytics → Disconnect<br />
# Then deactivate Site Kit if no other Google services in use:<br />
wp plugin deactivate google-site-kit<br />

If GA4 was via MonsterInsights:

<br />
wp plugin deactivate google-analytics-for-wordpress<br />
wp plugin uninstall google-analytics-for-wordpress</p>
<p># MonsterInsights leaves orphan options — clean them:<br />
wp option delete monsterinsights_settings<br />
wp option delete monsterinsights_settings_ms<br />
wp option delete monsterinsights_db_version<br />

If GA4 was direct in theme:

<br />
# Find the gtag code in:<br />
# wp-content/themes/<your-theme>/header.php<br />
# OR Customizer → Additional CSS / Header Code<br />
# OR Theme Options → Custom Header Code</p>
<p># Verify removal:<br />
curl -s https://yoursite.com/ | grep -c ‘gtag\|G-XXXXX’<br />
# Should return 0<br />

5. Verify (Day 15)

Open Chrome DevTools → Network → reload. Filter by “google” — should be empty. Filter by “plausible” or “/stats/” — should show pageview pings. If you still see Google requests, MonsterInsights uninstall didn’t clean its custom-code field. Check Settings → MonsterInsights leftover options.

WordPress-specific gotchas

• UTM persistence — UA stored campaign in `_ga` cookie for 2 years. Plausible has no equivalent. Add a custom event plausible('Visit', {props: {utm_source}}) on first visit if you need attribution windows.
• Caching plugins — WP Rocket / W3 Total Cache cache the page HTML. After plugin changes, purge cache or you’ll see stale gtag for hours.
• Multisite — Each subsite needs its own Plausible domain configuration. The plugin doesn’t auto-network-activate the site setting.
• WP_HOME mismatch — If WP_HOME differs from site URL, Plausible may track under the wrong domain. Check wp option get home.