Path Exploration

Path Exploration is a tree diagram of the routes users actually take from one event or page to the next.

You pick a starting point or an ending point, then expand node by node to see the events or screens that came before or after. Forward pathing starts from an event and shows what happens next; backward pathing starts from an outcome and traces how users got there. Each branch shows the count of users or events that took it.

You start backward pathing from purchase to see the last screen before conversion. Most buyers came from the cart, as expected, but a meaningful branch came straight from a blog article, telling you that content is closing sales, not just attracting traffic.

Path Exploration ranks branches by volume, which buries the interesting ones. The biggest node is usually the obvious path you already knew about. The insight is in the smaller branches, and GA4 will not surface those for you. You have to expand nodes manually and read the long tail, and unique-user counts per node do not sum cleanly because one user can appear on several branches.

The obvious path is the loud one. Go looking for the quiet branches.