Best place to insert the Google Analytics code
Where’s the best place to insert the Google Analytics code in WordPress, header or footer? I prefer footer, because I wanted my site to load faster by reducing the number of scripts in the header, but can it work even if the script is in the footer?
Answer
Google used to recommend putting it just before the </body> tag, because the original method they provided for loading ga.js was blocking. The newer async syntax, though, can safely be put in the head with minimal blockage, so the current recommendation is just before the </head> tag.
<head> will add a little latency; in the footer will reduce the number of pageviews recorded at some small margin. It's a tradeoff. ga.js is heavily cached and present on a large percentage of sites across the web, so its often served from the cache, reducing latency to almost nil.
As a matter of personal preference, I like to include it in the <head>, but its really a matter of preference.