Full Answer

The 24 Carat Data Standard applies a purity metaphor borrowed from precious metals: pure gold is 24 carat, and pure data scores 25 out of 25 across five tests. Portability asks whether you can move your data to another platform without losing it. Reality checks whether the numbers reflect actual human visitors or include bot traffic and sampled guesses. Queryability measures whether AI tools can interrogate the data directly. Durability tests whether you own the storage or rent it from a vendor who can change terms. Completeness asks whether every visitor and every event is captured.

GA4 fails on multiple fronts. Andy Crestodina's research at Orbit Media found that GA4 misattributes traffic sources and undercounts direct visits, inflating some channels while hiding others entirely. Layer ad-blocker losses — roughly 30% of desktop visitors never fire the GA4 tag — and the picture worsens. The data you are reporting on is structurally incomplete before you even open a dashboard.

The path from 9 carat to 24 is not a single tool swap. It requires server-side event capture that bypasses browser restrictions, a first-party data warehouse you control, and an event pipeline that validates every hit before it lands. When those three layers are in place, every visitor counts, every event is queryable, and the data compounds over time instead of decaying. That is the difference between analytics you report and data you build a business on. Read more in the full 24 Carat Data Standard breakdown.