how do you add
link_urlto detail reports?Can anyone help? I’m trying to work out which outbound urls have been clicked on my site but it seems impossible in GA4. Reports>Life cycle>Engagement>Events shows the number of ‘click’ events and I’m trying to work out where the ‘clicks’ have been out to but this doesn’t appear possible.
UA allowed you to click the ‘click’ event name and see a list of external urls that people had clicked but this doesn’t happen in GA4. I’ve read the help files and enhanced tracking is on.
I can edit reports and see the library section but can only see overview reports to edit the cards on. I have tried adding it here, editing the Events report. I have added it as a custom dimension but still cannot get it to show.
Surely this is the most obvious question to someone on the ‘click’ report and yet GA4 is so unintuitive and complicated it seems impossible to do, yet I’m sure it is easily possible somehow.
The short answer is:
link_url’ parameter as a custom dimension in GA4 reports? The reason you cannot see the specific external URLs (the link_url parameter) in your standard Events report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is because while Enhanced Measurement automatically collects the link_url with the click event, it does not automatically register this parameter as a reportable Custom Dimension.
The solution is a two-step process: first, you must register link_url as an Event-scoped Custom Dimension in the GA4 Admin panel, and second, you must use the Explorations section to build a custom report that includes this new dimension.
You are running into the core difference between collecting an event parameter and reporting on it.
For more advanced, automated reporting outside of the GA4 UI, you can leverage the Google Analytics Data API to programmatically query your click event data, including the registered link_url custom dimension.
The long answer is:
Your frustration with the unintuitive nature of viewing specific event parameters like link_url in standard GA4 reports is a common pain point for users transitioning from Universal Analytics.
The fundamental technical and architectural difference is that GA4 automatically collects event parameters like link_url, link_domain, and outbound with the click event (assuming Enhanced Measurement is enabled), but only a handful of automatically collected parameters are surfaced as dimensions in the standard reports.
To expose any other collected event parameter for use in the standard GA4 reports, you must manually register it as a Custom Dimension in the Admin > Custom Definitions section.
For the outbound link URL, you need to create a new Event-scoped Custom Dimension and map its Event parameter field precisely to link_url.
Once this custom dimension is registered (it may take 24-48 hours to start processing data), it still won’t automatically appear as a card or column in the standard Events report.
The most effective, actionable solution within the GA4 UI is to use the Explorations feature.
This tool allows you to build custom reports from scratch, letting you select any collected metric and any registered dimension.
You would navigate to Explore and create a new Free Form report.
In the setup, you must import the dimensions Link URL (or whatever you named your custom dimension) and Event name, along with the metric Event count.
You then drag Link URL to the Rows column and Event count to the Values column, and crucially, apply a Filter to include only the click Event name (and optionally an Outbound equals true filter for strictly external links).
This method, while requiring manual report building, is the most cost-effective solution as it uses built-in GA4 tools.
For an even more robust and cost-effective solution, especially for integrating this granular data with other systems like a CRM or a custom dashboard, the Google Analytics Data API can be used.
This API allows for programmatic queries against your GA4 property, letting you request reports with the eventCount metric and your newly registered customEvent:link_url dimension, enabling seamless synchronization with tools like Looker Studio or BigQuery for richer, off-platform analysis and visualization.
About The Author
