Seeds
Why does 70% of AI-referred traffic show up as Direct in GA4?
GA4 classifies roughly 70.6% of AI-referred traffic as Direct because those visits arrive without HTTP referrer headers (Loamly, February 2026, based on 446,405 visits). Four...
What changed when WooCommerce made Blocks checkout the default and how does it affect tracking?
WooCommerce replaced the classic shortcode-based checkout with React-rendered Blocks checkout as the default for all new installations in 2024. The change broke every tracking plugin...
Are ad blockers now targeting server-side GTM subdomains by name?
Yes. Community-maintained filter lists including EasyPrivacy and AdGuard now catalogue specific server-side GTM subdomain patterns — the AdGuard tracking_servers_firstparty.txt file alone contains over 3,400 rules...
What is the difference between Basic and Advanced Consent Mode for WooCommerce stores?
Basic Consent Mode blocks all Google tags until a visitor grants consent, sending zero data to Google beforehand. Advanced Consent Mode loads tags immediately and...
Can a custom WooCommerce thank-you page built with Elementor or Bricks break purchase tracking?
Yes, and it's one of the most common silent tracking failures in WooCommerce. GTM4WP v1.21+ fires the purchase dataLayer push from the woocommerce_thankyou hook, which...
Why does WooCommerce say 50 orders but GA4 says 32 and Facebook claims 18?
Each platform counts conversions through a different mechanism and loses data through different failure points. WooCommerce records every completed order in its database — the...
Why does WooCommerce tracking break after every plugin or theme update without any warning?
WooCommerce tracking breaks silently because most tracking plugins scrape the page's DOM or hook into HTML structures that change without notice during updates. When WooCommerce,...
What is Google Tag Gateway and does it replace server-side tracking for WooCommerce?
Google Tag Gateway (GTG) is a first-party proxy that loads Google's tracking scripts from your own domain instead of Google's servers, and Google reports advertisers...
What is a first-party subdomain in server-side tracking and why does it bypass ad blockers for WooCommerce?
A first-party subdomain is a DNS record on your own domain (like track.yourstore.com) that points to your server-side tracking endpoint instead of a third-party vendor's...
Why does a caching plugin break WooCommerce purchase event tracking on the order confirmation page?
Caching plugins serve pre-rendered HTML snapshots to speed up page loads. When the WooCommerce order confirmation page is cached after the first purchase, subsequent buyers...
What is WooCommerce HPOS and why does it break tracking plugins that read order data?
HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) is WooCommerce's replacement for storing orders as WordPress posts. Instead of the wp_posts and wp_postmeta tables, orders live in dedicated wc_orders...
Why does AI referral traffic hide in GA4's Direct channel for WooCommerce stores?
About 70% of AI referral traffic arrives without HTTP referrer headers, so GA4 can't identify the source and dumps those sessions into Direct (Seresa, "The...