A common cause is overlapping automatic and manual page_view events. GA4 may measure a browser-history change while your router or Tag Manager sends another event for the same navigation. 12
Reproduce one navigation
Open DebugView and move between two application views. Compare events at the same moment and their page_location values. Test initial load, internal navigation and the browser’s back button separately. 1
List the sender for each event: the Google tag, enhanced measurement, a Tag Manager trigger or application code. Dividing the report total by two is not a fix for the configuration.
Give pageviews one owner
When measuring manually, avoid an overlapping automatic path. One important detail: send_page_view: false addresses the pageview sent by tag configuration; inspect browser-history measurement separately too. 2
Do not disable unrelated analytics or consent handling. Change the duplicate path and repeat the same test.
After the fix, each view you define as a virtual page should produce one correctly populated event with the right location and title. Decide whether a filter change is a new view or a separate interaction instead of letting two measurement systems make that decision independently.
This is a measurement check, not a reason to rewrite the entire application or assume that all high pageview counts are duplicates.
