Third-party scripts
Externally hosted JavaScript such as analytics, tag managers, consent tools, chat widgets and ad code, which are a leading cause of poor…
AnalyticsServer-side tagging
Server-side tracking
Collecting analytics and marketing data through a server endpoint you control instead of sending it directly from the browser to vendors.
In full
Server-side tagging reduces client-side JavaScript weight, which helps INP, and recovers some data lost to ad blockers and tracking prevention. It does not bypass consent requirements, legal obligations attach to the processing, not the transport. It also introduces infrastructure cost and a single point of failure, and it can obscure what data is being shared with whom if not documented.
Example
Moving three marketing tags server-side removes 180 KB of client JavaScript and improves INP on mobile templates.
Related terms
Consent management and Consent Mode
Systems for capturing and honouring users' tracking permissions, and Google's mechanism for adjusting tag behaviour and modelling gaps…
Google Analytics 4
Google's event-based analytics platform, which replaced Universal Analytics in July 2023 and models sessions and users from event streams.
Interaction to Next Paint
A Core Web Vital measuring overall responsiveness as the latency of the worst (approximately) interaction on a page; good is 200 ms or…
Sessions
A group of user interactions within a time frame; in GA4 a session begins with a session_start event and ends after 30 minutes of…