Analytics & SEO Measurement

Analytics gets much easier when each tool has one clear job. Specky uses PostHog to understand what people do inside the product, Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors move through the public site, and Google Search Console to show how people find that site in Google.

They work together, but they are not interchangeable:

Before you start

You will need:

• A PostHog project if you want product usage, funnels, feature adoption, or session intelligence
• A Google Analytics 4 web data stream and its Measurement ID (it starts with G-)
• A verified Google Search Console property for specky.space
• Access to the Specky deployment environment if you are adding or changing environment variables

You can start with only one tool. If your question is about what happened after signup, start with PostHog. If it is about visitors from a search result, use Search Console and GA4 together.

Set up PostHog for product behaviour

PostHog is the source of truth for what happens inside the application. It is the right place to investigate activation, feature adoption, funnels, session recordings, and questions such as “where do new workspaces stop?”

1. Create or choose a PostHog project

In PostHog, open the project you want Specky to report to. Copy the project key and note the region host:

• US: https://us.i.posthog.com
• EU: https://eu.i.posthog.com

2. Add the public-site key to Specky

Set these environment variables in the deployment environment:

NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY=phc_your_project_key
NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST=https://us.i.posthog.com

Specky starts PostHog only when the key is present. Optional product analytics are consent-aware: visitors can accept or reject them from the cookie preferences link in the footer.

3. Verify the first events

After deploying, accept product and traffic analytics in the cookie banner, open the public site, and sign up or open a workspace. In PostHog, check Activity → Live Events for events such as $pageview, marketing_cta_clicked, signup_started, or product events from the workspace.

When you connect PostHog inside Settings → Integrations, that is a different connection: it lets Specky read your product events, funnels, feature flags, and other project data as evidence for the AI. The public-site PostHog key measures Specky itself; the workspace integration lets Specky analyse your product.

Set up Google Analytics 4 for the public site

GA4 is for acquisition and website journeys: landing pages, referral sources, campaign parameters, and the path from a marketing page to signup. It should not be your only source for in-product activation questions.

1. Create a web data stream

In Google Analytics, create or open the Specky property, add a Web data stream for https://www.specky.space, and copy the Measurement ID that starts with G-.

2. Add the Measurement ID

Set:

NEXT_PUBLIC_GA_MEASUREMENT_ID=G-XXXXXXXXXX

If you use Google Ads, add its account ID separately:

NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_ADS_ID=AW-XXXXXXXXXX
NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_ADS_PURCHASE_LABEL=your_conversion_label

Google Analytics 4 is consented with the Product and traffic analytics category. Google Ads and advertising pixels are controlled by the separate Marketing and advertising category. This lets a visitor allow measurement without automatically allowing advertising cookies.

3. Validate a page view

Deploy the variables, open the site in a fresh browser session, and choose the analytics category in the cookie banner. Then:

1. Open Reports → Realtime in GA4.
2. Visit the homepage and one docs or integration page.
3. Click a primary CTA, such as Start 14-day trial.
4. Confirm that the page views and cta_clicked or signup_started events appear.

Specky sends one page view for the initial page and one for each client-side route change. It does not send those optional analytics events before consent.

Connect Search Console for SEO

Search Console is where you check organic demand and Google’s view of the site. GA4 can tell you that a visitor arrived from organic search; Search Console can tell you which query and result page produced the impression or click.

1. Add the property

In Google Search Console, add a Domain property for specky.space if you can add a DNS record. This covers the site’s protocols and subdomains. A URL-prefix property for https://www.specky.space is also fine when DNS access is not available.

2. Verify ownership

For a URL-prefix property using the HTML tag method, copy the verification value into:

NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_SITE_VERIFICATION=your_verification_value

For a Domain property, use the DNS verification method that Search Console gives you. The environment variable above is for the HTML meta-tag route; it does not replace DNS verification for a Domain property.

3. Submit the sitemap

Once the property is verified, submit:

https://www.specky.space/sitemap.xml

Then inspect a few important URLs, especially the homepage, the docs hub, a first-party integration page, and a role page. Request indexing only when a page is genuinely ready; publishing a URL does not guarantee immediate indexing.

4. Read the right report

Use Performance → Search results to watch impressions, clicks, click-through rate, average position, queries, and pages. Use Indexing → Pages when you need to understand why a URL is not indexed. Use Experience and Core Web Vitals for real-user performance issues.

A real debugging example

Imagine someone asks: “Why were signups lower for the last few days?” There is no single analytics shortcut that can answer that responsibly.

1. Search Console: check whether organic impressions or clicks fell, and whether a key page changed query coverage.
2. GA4: check landing pages, source/medium, campaign parameters, and whether visitors reached the signup page.
3. PostHog: check signup_started, signup completion, onboarding, and the last successful product step.
4. Specky’s connected sources: check support, calls, Slack, incidents, or deployment notes for an explanation.

The output should be a small evidence trail: “organic clicks were stable, paid traffic fell after the campaign ended, and signup completion stayed stable.” That is much more useful than saying “SEO was down” because one dashboard moved.

Keep the reports healthy

• Use stable UTM parameters such as utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, and utm_content on campaign links.
• Keep one canonical URL per public page and submit the sitemap URL without tracking parameters.
• Do not put personal data, customer names, or free-form notes into event parameters.
• Name events around decisions you will actually make: cta_clicked, signup_started, and meaningful product milestones are more useful than dozens of one-off labels.
• Compare Search Console with GA4 over the same date range, but expect their numbers to differ: they answer different questions and use different measurement boundaries.
• Review consent and tracking after every deployment that changes the layout, navigation, cookie banner, or domain.

If something is not showing up

• No GA4 Realtime activity: check the Measurement ID, consent choice, browser extensions, and whether the tag request is blocked.
• Duplicate page views: confirm that only Specky’s GA4 tag is installed and that send_page_view remains disabled in the initial config.
• PostHog is empty: check the public key and host, then confirm the visitor accepted product analytics.
• Search Console has no data: verify the correct property, wait for processing, and inspect the exact canonical URL rather than a local or preview URL.
• A page is not indexed: inspect the URL, check robots and canonical signals, and fix the page before requesting another crawl.

For the product-side version of this workflow, see Query product intelligence. To connect PostHog as evidence for a workspace, follow the PostHog integration guide. For the public-site checklist, start with the first integration guide.