Sitekit randomly disconnects on many of my websites

Hi @alexdx,

Thanks for reaching out and providing thorough details of what you’re encountering. See answers to your queries below:

1. Some sites will randomly stop getting data in Google Analytics…

If you’re the same Google account to set up Site Kit on a large number of sites then what you’re encountering is an OAuth token limitation. OAuth is the verification system used by Site Kit to connect the plugin to your various Google services. At present there is a 50 active OAuth tokens limit, per app, with Site Kit being the app in this case. We are investigating the possibility of increasing this limit. This however, isn’t something we can action ourselves, it’s an OAuth limitation.

One thing to note is that even though your Google account may become disconnected from Site Kit on the longest connected site – to allow for a new site connection, Search Console, Analytics and AdSense data is still gathering, and the Site Kit snippets remain placed. Data is not lost, it’s just not viewable within the Site Kit dashboards until you connect once more, and it’s always available over on the services themselves (ie. analytics.google.com).

Hopefully the above help explains how OAuth works with the Site Kit application. But do let me know if you have any further queries on this. We also have a dashboard sharing feature being worked on, which may be sufficient for you to view data within your Site Kit dashboard, with a separate WordPress administrator having set up the plugin with their own Google account.

2. Some sites will randomly start getting ridiculously low bounce rates in Google Analytics…

When it comes to bounce rates for a site there are many factors. Site Kit is primarily an admin panel operated plugin, which doesn’t make any direct changes to the appearance or features of your site for visitors. If you ask the same question to the product experts at the Analytics Help Center there should be able to assist better than we can here in Site Kit plugin support.

As above note that even if one of your sites does disconnect your Google account from Site Kit, the Analytics data is still being collected.

When I use tag assistant to check the site, there is an error showing “Same web property ID is tracked twice.”. I log in to the site, and Sitekit isn’t connected anymore.

Were you using the legacy Analytics check Chrome extension to check your Analytics snippet? If so I would recommend using the tagassistant.google.com service as opposed to this extension for a more accurate reading of your Analytics snippets. If you want me to check any of your sites specifically I’m also happy to do so, including any site where you may have been disconnected from Site Kit.

@jamesosborne Thanks for the reply. I’m totally fine with being disconnected because of OAuth token limitation, as data is still being gathered.

However, what I am referring to is an entirely different issue. Some of the sites that are disconnected are experiencing one of these issues:

1. They are NOT getting data until I sign in to Sitekit again.
Last week I found that one of my sites in Google Analytics hadn’t received any data over the last week. So I view the site using tagassistant.google.com and sure enough, there is NO GA TAG on the site. I log into the site and Sitekit is disconnected. I go through the process of signing into Sitekit again, and then I check the site in tagassistant.google.com, and BOOM the GA tag magically appeared again. Days later I check Google Analytics and the site is getting data again.

2. They are showing a duplicate tag issue until I sign into Sitekit again.

When I use tagassistant.google.com on https://northcountyvets.com/ it says “Same web property ID is tracked twice.” for the GA tag (you can currently see this as I haven’t fixed it yet). I log into the site, and notice that Sitekit isn’t connected. If I were to go through with connecting Sitekit again, and then refresh the page using tagassistant.google.com the “Same web property ID is tracked twice.” issue will be magically gone. I’ve gone through this on multiple sites now that have the “property ID is tracked twice” error, and every time it is Sitekit being disconnected – If I reconnect it, the issue disappears, and my data returns to normal.

For many of my sites, if Sitekit becomes disconnected, they still get data and don’t have the duplicate tag issue, however, I keep finding plenty of sites that have the issues above, and the culprit is ALWAYS Sitekit has been disconnected on the site.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by alexDx.

Hi @alexdx,

Thanks for the response, and sorry to hear you’re encountering some sites that are not collecting data. Is the volusiawoods.com site you references one such site? If so can you share the following:

1. Your Site Health information. You can use this form to share privately if preferred.
2. Are there any other administrators of this site?
3. When you noticed your site was not being tracked from the time you were disconnected from Site Kit can you share a screenshot of this from analytics.google.com? You can include a link to this within the same form when sending your Site Health information.

Once we have the above I can advise further. We may need to do some checks to “break” your Site Kit connection, or we can preform some troubleshooting steps.

2. They are showing a duplicate tag issue until I sign into Sitekit again.

I don’t see this when checking your site at present. I’m unable to debug what you have in your Google Tag Managaer container with Tagassistant.google.com, however, it’s possible you have a Universal Analytics tag, along with the Site Kit placed snippet. Can you confirm this, or do you see this notice after debugging your Tag Manager container?

Let me know if you have any questions with the above.

@jamesosborne

1. Your Site Health information. You can use this form to share privately if preferred.
– I submitted this info using the form

2. Are there any other administrators of this site?
– There are no other admins of this site.

3. When you noticed your site was not being tracked from the time you were disconnected from Site Kit can you share a screenshot of this from analytics.google.com? You can include a link to this within the same form when sending your Site Health information.
– I just noticed this issue last week, but the site has apparently been showing a duplicate tag issue for over 90 days now.

“I don’t see this when checking your site at present. I’m unable to debug what you have in your Google Tag Managaer container with Tagassistant.google.com, however, it’s possible you have a Universal Analytics tag, along with the Site Kit placed snippet. Can you confirm this, or do you see this notice after debugging your Tag Manager container?”

– https://northcountyvets.com/ This site is showing the issue … it currently has the “Same web property ID is tracked twice.” error when I use the tag assistant browser extension. I’ve found this issue on over 50 sites now … ALL showing the duplicate tag issue when I use tag assistant. They are all fixed as soon as I re-connect Sitekit.

“however, it’s possible you have a Universal Analytics tag, along with the Site Kit placed snippet. Can you confirm this, or do you see this notice after debugging your Tag Manager container?”

– I do not have another tag manually on the site. We don’t add any tags for GA on our sites as Sitekit adds them for us. This site ONLY has Sitekit enabled and does not have any manual tags embedded in the header of the site. If you are seeing two (in your screenshots) this has to be from Sitekit in some way, because we do not add our own tags to any sites.

Hi @alexdx,

Many thanks for the update. I’ve checked the details and I suspect you’re encountering that message from the Tag Assistant Legacy Chrome extension based on a Universal Type tag, within your non Site Kit inserted Google Tag Manager container.

Can you temporarily remove the Google Tag Manager container from your site and I can check your site once more?

@jamesosborne strangely enough, I’m not seeing the duplicate tag issue anymore when using Tag Assistant Chrome extension. Is this extension reliable, or should I be using a different method to identify if a site has this duplicate tracking issue?

@jamesosborne Here is another that is showing the duplicate tracking: https://pettownsendvet.com/

I removed the GTM container on this site and the issue went away (according to Tag assistant). However, I need GTM on my site, is there some reason why GTM is causing a duplicate tracking error?

@jamesosborne I’m thinking this might be related to this issue: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/google-tag-manager-double-tracking-2/

So when I view https://pettownsendvet.com/ using Tag Assistant, it is showing the duplicate tracking error message.

I remove the GTM container on the site (that I’ve added in the header), and the issue goes away (according to tag assistant).

I look at the container for this site in tagmanager.google.com and there is a tag named “Google Analytics” with a type of “Google Analytics: Universal Analytics”, firing triggers “All pages”.

If I remove this tag in the container, publish it, and then add the GTM code BACK into the header of the site, everything checks out according to Tag Assistant.

Should I go through all my sites and remove the Google Analytics tag from the GTM container on each (considering Sitekit should be adding a GA tracking anyway)? Could this be causing the problem with Sitekit and the duplicate tracking issue I’m seeing on my sites?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by alexDx.

Hi @alexdx,

Glad to hear the notice no longer occurred when you temporarily removed Google Tag Manager. This indicated you have a Universal Analytics tag container. This isn’t required if you already are using Site Kit to insert your Google Analytics snippet. Can you revisit your Google Tag Manager account and remove the Universal Type Analytics tag publish this container with this update?

Alternatively you can disconnect the Analytics module within Site Kit and connect once more. After doing so remove the manually inserted Google Tag Manager snippet from the header of your site. After doing so the connect the Google Tag Manager module within Site Kit, so you don’t need to manually place the Tag Manager code on your site. After doing so connect the Analytics module once more, at which point the the plugin can use your existing Google Tag Manager Analytics container. The plugin then won’t insert it’s own snippet, so you won’t have duplicate snippets.

Let me know if you need help with the above.

In relation to whether you should use the tagassistant.google.com or the Google Tag Manager Chrome extension the tagassistant.google.com service is recommended.

@jamesosborne So all the sites that have this issue have a tag named “Google Analytics” with a type of “Google Analytics: Universal Analytics”, firing triggers “All pages” in their GTM container. I just want to confirm that I can REMOVE this tag from each GTM container, and it won’t mess up my connection to Google Analytics? Considering Sitekit is already adding Google Analytics to each of my sites, I shouldn’t need that Universal Analytics tag in GTM, correct?

Hi @alexdx,

Great that you checked this! And yes, I can confirm that if you have a “Universal Analytics” tag within your Google Tag Manager container you can remove this and allow Site Kit to place the snippet for you. That way you won’t have duplicate Analytics tags executing, or any notices regarding duplicate snippets.

An easier alternative which I didn’t mention in my earlier comments – apologies for that, is to keep the Site Kit Analytics module connected, but set the options within the Site Kit Analytics module to not place the Universal Analytics snippet. That way you can use your Analytics snippet placed via Tag manager as opposed to having both your Tag Manager snippet and the Site Kit placed snippet (Site Kit > Settings > Analytics > Edit > Place Universal Analytics code).

Let me know how you get on with the above. You can set this setting on one site before checking once more. I’m also happy to check this for you.

Note that we are aiming for better detection of a manually inserted Google Tag Manager snippet that contains a Universal Analytics tag. You’ll find more on this below:
https://github.com/google/site-kit-wp/issues/4103

If you use Site Kit to insert your Tag Manager container snippet, as opposed to inserting the Tag Manager container code manually, the plugin does already recognize a Universal Analytics tag, and it won’t therefore place it’s own snippet.

As we didn’t receive a response I’ll mark this as resolved. Feel free to open a new support topic if you continue to encounter issues, or reopen this topic and we’d be happy to assist.