diff --git a/makeabilitylab/settings.py b/makeabilitylab/settings.py
index 4594263d..3cde7f45 100644
--- a/makeabilitylab/settings.py
+++ b/makeabilitylab/settings.py
@@ -86,8 +86,8 @@
     SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')
 
 # Makeability Lab Global Variables, including Makeability Lab version
-ML_WEBSITE_VERSION = "2.16.1" # Keep this updated with each release and also change the short description below
-ML_WEBSITE_VERSION_DESCRIPTION = "SEO: shorten the home page <title> to 'HCI & AI Research at UW | Makeability Lab' so it stays under Google's ~60-character display limit (the 2.16.0 'University of Washington' variant was truncated). Follow-up to the 2.16.0 on-page SEO fixes."
+ML_WEBSITE_VERSION = "2.16.2" # Keep this updated with each release and also change the short description below
+ML_WEBSITE_VERSION_DESCRIPTION = "Analytics: load Google Analytics 4 (G-M18PCH55ZP) directly via the native gtag.js snippet instead of chain-loading it off the retired Universal Analytics analytics.js tag (a console-side 'connected site tag'). Removes the dead UA-79723676-1 snippet so GA4 collection no longer depends on deprecated UA machinery (#855)."
 DATE_MAKEABILITYLAB_FORMED = datetime.date(2012, 1, 1)  # Date Makeability Lab was formed
 MAX_BANNERS = 7 # Maximum number of banners on a page
 
diff --git a/website/templates/website/base.html b/website/templates/website/base.html
index 9aae34b7..f5645fef 100644
--- a/website/templates/website/base.html
+++ b/website/templates/website/base.html
@@ -152,13 +152,15 @@
   {% if debug %}
   <script>console.log("Development mode: Google Analytics disabled");</script>
   {% else %}
+  <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) — GA4 property G-M18PCH55ZP (#855).
+       Loads GA4 directly instead of chain-loading it off the retired Universal
+       Analytics analytics.js tag via a console-side "connected site tag". -->
+  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-M18PCH55ZP"></script>
   <script>
-    (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
-    (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
-    m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
-    })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
-    ga('create', 'UA-79723676-1', 'auto');
-    ga('send', 'pageview');
+    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
+    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
+    gtag('js', new Date());
+    gtag('config', 'G-M18PCH55ZP');
   </script>
   {% endif %}
 </head>