Annotations – Glossary

Mark launches and changes in analytics so trends have clear context.

Why it matters

When traffic or conversions move, annotations explain why. They help you connect spikes and dips to real events, which improves decisions and reporting.

Common cases

• Product launch, record the date and key change (new checkout flow, pricing update).
• Tracking fix, note what changed (GA4 event parameters, consent mode), and affected properties.

Checklist (add an annotation when…)

• You launch or retire a product, feature, or content section.
• You redesign navigation, templates, or move URLs.
• You ship SEO changes (titles, meta, redirects, canonical logic).
• You change tracking (events, tags, consent, cookie banner), or migrate analytics.
• You run campaigns (email, ads, social), or pause spend.
• You have outages, performance incidents, or deployment rollbacks.

Platform notes

• Google Analytics 4, native annotations are supported. You can add a title, description, single date or date range, and a color. Annotations appear across reports with line graphs, and you can view and manage them at the property level in Admin.
• Plausible Analytics, no native annotations. Maintain a shared changelog for releases and tracking changes, then reference it in reports to provide context.
• Tools: If you want annotations on Search Console performance graphs, SEO Gets adds site notes and core updates so you can see “what changed” beside clicks and impressions. Ideal when you live in GSC day to day.