GA4 Event Taxonomy Template for B2B (2025 Guide)

Duplicate pageviews inflate session counts, distort engagement metrics, and break attribution in GA4. WordPress sites that use both theme-level analytics and Google Tag Manager (GTM) are especially prone to firing page_view twice on each load.

The good news: it’s easy to diagnose and fix.

Let’s walk through the fastest way to identify and resolve duplicate pageviews on your site.

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1. How to Spot the Issue

• In GA4 Realtime or DebugView, check if two page_view events fire on a single page load.
• In the browser console, run:

window.dataLayer?.filter(d => d.event === 'gtm.historyChange' || d.event === 'page_view')

• If a theme or plugin also injects GA code, you’ll likely see two pageview sources.

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2. The Most Common Causes

• A theme or plugin has GA/gtag enabled while GTM also sends GA4 events.
• Both gtag.js and the GTM container are installed simultaneously.
• A SPA-like plugin triggers history changes without proper GTM configuration.
• Multiple GTM containers are present on the site.

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3. The Fix (Pick Your Setup)

A) Using GTM Only (Recommended)

• Remove any GA/gtag snippets from theme settings or plugins.
• Keep only the GTM container code in the site head/body.
• In GTM, use:
  • GA4 Configuration tag
  • Optional: GA4 Event tag for page_view (if not relying on automatic page measurement).

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B) Using gtag.js Only (Less Common for WordPress)

• Remove the GTM container from the site.
• Keep only the gtag.js GA4 snippet in the head.

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C) SPA or Ajax Navigation

• In GTM, enable the History Change trigger for virtual pageviews.
• Push updated page_location and page_title after route changes.

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4. Practical Checklist

• Check theme options/Customizer for “Google Analytics” fields → turn them off if using GTM.
• Deactivate overlapping analytics plugins or set them to “Use GTM mode.”
• Ensure only one GTM container is published sitewide.
• For caching/CDN, purge after changes to avoid old code still firing.

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5. Verify the Fix

• Open GTM Preview, load a page, and confirm only one page_view per load.
• Check in GA4 DebugView that page_view fires once with correct page_location and page_title.
• Navigate across 3–4 pages to ensure no extra pageviews appear from history events.

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Final Thoughts

Duplicate pageviews can quietly skew KPIs, sessions, and attribution. Standardizing on a single source of truth—preferably GTM—keeps GA4 clean and reliable.

Once your site sends one accurate page_view per load, your Explorations, audiences, and conversion paths become trustworthy again.

👉 Need help auditing your setup or cleaning up your tag stack? Book a free consultation.