Google hits that bypass your server container

The point of server-side tagging is that the browser talks to your own tagging server, and your server talks to Google. When GA4 or Google Ads hits still go straight from the browser to Google, they are exactly the requests ad blockers stop, and your server container, with its enrichment, consent checks and logs, never sees them.

How to spot it

Open your site with the Network tab of your browser's developer tools and filter on collect. GA4 hits should go to your tagging subdomain (or your Same-Origin Tracking path), not to google-analytics.com. The Measurebase tracking audit checks this on every crawled page and tells you which share of the Google hits went direct, and from which container or script.

The causes

1. No server container URL. The Google tag in your web container needs the setting server_container_url. Without it, the tag sends to Google directly. The audit reports this as an error naming the tag.
2. The wrong server container URL. An old tagging subdomain, a typo, or the address of another provider. The audit compares it with your domain's tagging address.
3. A Google tag outside Tag Manager. A hard-coded gtag.js or an app pixel sends its own hits straight to Google. See Duplicate tracking.
4. A second container. Its Google tags don't know about your tagging server at all.

Setting the server container URL

In your web container, open your Google tag (or the Google Analytics tag that configures it) and add the configuration parameter server_container_url with your tagging address:

• your tagging subdomain, for example https://mbase.yourshop.com;
• or, with Same-Origin Tracking verified, the path on your own website, for example https://www.yourshop.com/mb.

If several subdomains of your site each have their own Same-Origin address, use a Lookup Table variable on Page Hostname as the value, so every subdomain sends through its own address.

With Google Tag Manager connected, Measurebase can make this change for you: the tracking audit proposes the fix, applies it in a separate workspace, and you review and publish it yourself.

Google Ads tags

Google Ads conversion tags in the web container send their own requests to Google's ad domains. With Enhanced Ad Blocker Protection on, those requests are masked and relayed through your tagging server too, so blockers don't stop them. Measuring Google Ads conversions server-side, from the server container, is the other route.