How to Reclaim Your Google Analytics Account

Companies can get locked out of their Google Analytics (GA) accounts for a variety of reasons—most often, this happens with employee turnover and/or forgotten passwords. Assuming you’re unsuccessful in obtaining last-known log-in credentials, we recommend following these steps to prove ownership of the website linked to your GA account, the first step in reclaiming it.

To prove website ownership you need to:

1) Create an analytics.txt file, replacing the brackets with the correct information regarding your account. The email address needs to be a Gmail client address. (This does not mean the email address needs to be @gmail.com, rather, the email platform needs to be Google-based.)

GooGhywoiu9839t543j0s7543uw1 - pls add {INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS} to GA account
{INSERT UA-ID} with ‘Manage Users and Edit’ permissions - date {INSERT DATE}.

2) Add the .txt file to the top-domain of your website. If your website is managed by a developer, they should be able to assist with this step.

3) If your Google Analytics account is linked to any other Google accounts, such as Google Ads or AdSense, you will need to prove ownership of those accounts as well. To prove ownership of a linked account, you will need to provide Google with:

a) The exact amount and date of the last invoice, charge, or transfer. Bank transfers will also require the reference number for the transfer.
b) The type of credit card, along with the name on the credit card, the last 4 digits of the card (Google warns against sending the entire number), and the expiration date.
c) Company name and billing address listed on the account.
d) Display URL for the website on the account.
e) Sample keywords from one or more campaigns on the account.

4) Reach out to Google. Submit the form linked here to Google, providing as much information as possible.

Once you have completed these steps, Google may follow up via email or phone if they need clarification on any of the information provided. Typically, accounts are granted access and notified within two business days. If you need to check the status of a request, you can follow up with Google here.

After you have regained access to the account, we recommend immediately adding a second user with full administrator rights. For the second user, you can either select an additional trusted user or create a backup account.