Documentation
GA4 Countries report
GA4 sessions, active users, key events and engagement by visitor country, and how these differ from the countries in Search Console's own reports.
The Countries report groups the site's GA4 sessions by the country each visit came from, with active users, key events, engagement and each country's share of sessions. Read it next to the Search Console Countries report: Search Console tells you where people saw and clicked your Google results, while GA4 tells you where visitors from every channel came from and whether they converted.
Where GA4 gets a visitor's country
GA4's country dimension is "the country from which the user activity originated" (Data API schema). Google Analytics derives it, together with region and city, from the visitor's IP address (EU, Switzerland, or UK-focused data and privacy). So a visitor using a VPN, a corporate network or a privacy relay is placed where that network's address is, which may not be where the person is.
How it differs from Search Console's countries
| Search Console countries | GA4 Countries | |
|---|---|---|
| What is counted | Impressions and clicks on Google Search results | Sessions on your site, from every channel |
| How a country is recorded | Per search, as a three-letter ISO 3166-1 code (Search Analytics API) | Per visit, from the IP address |
| What it never sees | Visits from other search engines, social, email or direct traffic | Searches that did not lead to a visit, and visits where the GA4 tag did not run |
| What happens next | Nothing: Search Console stops at the click | Engagement and key events |
Because the two count different things, their country rankings rarely match exactly. A country that is high in Search Console impressions but low in GA4 sessions is usually one where you appear in results but people seldom click; the CTR for that country in Search Console confirms it.
What the report shows
- Five cards for the segment: Sessions, Active Users, Page Views, Engagement Rate and Key Events, each with its change.
- A bar chart of the ten countries with the most sessions and their share of the total.
- A table with Country, Sessions, Active Users, Key Events, Engagement and % of Sessions, sorted by sessions and searchable, 50 rows to a page.
Winning and Losing compare each country's sessions with the comparison period. Set the comparison to the previous year when you look for growing markets, so seasonal swings do not mislead you.
Questions it answers
- Where does Google organic traffic come from? Set GA4 filters to organic search (
google / organic). The table then shows Google organic visits by country, which you can hold against Search Console clicks by country for the same dates. - Which markets convert? Compare Key Events with Sessions row by row. To follow one key event, such as a sign-up, by country, use the Key Events by Country table in Key Events.
- Is a new market taking off? With a year-on-year comparison, Winning lists the countries that grew. Repeat with the organic segment to see whether search drove the growth.
- Are translated pages reaching their countries? Check the countries a language serves before and after you publish in that language. Internationalization shows the Search Console side of each language or country version.
How AutoPSEO helps
When Search Console shows demand from a country whose language your site does not cover yet, the content engine can translate the articles it writes into each language you add to the site (Translation). This report then shows whether visits from those countries follow.