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Excluding Internal Traffic the Easy Way
November 20, 2007
If you've done research on excluding internal traffic from your Google Analytics reports, then you've probably heard words like "user defined variable", "dynamic or static IP address", and "orphaned web page." While you may want to become familiar with these terms someday, the truth is that not everyone is a webmaster.
What's my point? Well, I'm not sure if anyone's come up with this before, and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised as this method is very easy, but here's a quick and easy way to exclude any kind of internal traffic from your reports, regardless of IP-whats-its. All you have to know is how to write an email.
Here's how:
Step1: This is by far the hardest step. In Google Analytics, create a new filter. In my example, I'll use 'Exclude all Internal Traffic'.
Filter Type: Custom
Select the 'Exclude' Option
Filter Field: Campaign Source, Campaign Medium, or Campaign Name - you pick!
Filter Patter: internal
Click here to see this filter in actionStep 2: Go to www.roirevolution.com/builder. That's right, we're using manual tags!
For the website URL, just put in your website's domain (i.e. http://www.roirevolution.com).
For campaign source, medium, and name, enter in the word "internal".
Generate the new URL!
Step 3: Copy and paste it to an email, and send it to everyone you want to exclude, demanding they click on it (asking nicely works too).
That's it! Seriously. Anyone (or rather, any computer/browser combo) that visits your site via this email link will be excluded, in full, from your Google Analytics profile that uses the above filter, regardless of IPs and all that other stuff.
Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, or questions!
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Posted by Shawn Purtell, Analytics and Optimization Specialist at 1:59 PM
Permalink | Comments ( 19 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )
Filed under: Analytics
Tagged as: Analytics Basics, Filters, Reports, Tracking
Comments
Hi Shawn,
How exactly does this email / filter combo exclude visits to your site via this email link? Does clicking this link create a cookie on that users computer so that if they visit your site via any other method, like a Google search for example, they will be excluded? Interesting post.
Jesse
November 20, 2007 4:49 PM
said:@Mike:
I suppose you could have them bookmark it, but it's not necessary. The cookie that's created lasts for 6 months (assuming they don't screw it up by coming to the site via a search engine or something silly), and is renewed every time they visit the site. The source is actually not a pageview variable, it's a session variable, so excluding the internal source effectively excludes the entire visit (and each subsequent visit), including all pageviews, from Google Analytics.
November 20, 2007 5:59 PM
said:@Jesse:
When a user clicks on the internal link you create, it sets a cookie in their browser that set them as coming from an internal source. This cookie lasts for 6 months, and is renewed with every new visit to the site. If your employees visit your site from a google search engine or some other non-direct source, it will indeed erase this internal cookie, but they probably shouldn't be doing that anyway. If they accidentally do, they can reset the internal cookie by clicking on the link again. All things considered, I think it's an easy way to exclude the vast majority of internal traffic.
November 20, 2007 6:02 PM
I'm not sure they would reset the cookie after a google search or another overwriting of the cookie. This method is good, but not good enough, imho.
November 21, 2007 5:08 AM
If you were to add this tag to the link to your website from e.g. your Intranet then every time someone used that link it would renew the cookie.
November 21, 2007 8:16 AM
said:@Tambu:
Similar limitations will exist no matter which method you use to exclude internal traffic. Using different computers, clearing cookies, expiring cookies, overwriting cookies, needing the user defined variable for something else, etc.
This method works great if your employees are made aware that they should not visit the site from your AdWords ads or organic searches. Shouldn't they know your URL if they work for you? They can use a bookmark.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a cookie based web analyltics platform, no method is going to be perfect. This is just an easy alternative that will do a great job of drastically reducing your internal traffic from your reports, and anyone can do it.
November 21, 2007 9:47 AM
said:@KDye:
That is a great way for doing this. It would make sure that the cookie is reset each time someone in the office uses the site. No method is going to be 100% perfect, but I think using an intranet like this is about as close as it gets. I think this works well because of its sheer simplicity.
November 21, 2007 9:50 AM
Sean:
This is a great alternative to adding a cookie to your machine, which is what Google Analytics Help Center and your own blog suggest. However, just remember that if you clear your browser's cookies, this process needs to be repeated.
November 26, 2007 11:12 PM
said:@Aaron:
Absolutely. If you clear cookies, you always have to reset them if you use any kind of cookie-based exclusion method (as opposed to using IP addresses). Thanks for pointing this out.
November 27, 2007 10:57 AM
This is fantastic Shawn, I had looked into excluding internal traffic before but gave up. Creating a custom page on the site was going to be difficult with our ecommerce provider.
Does this work with the new tracking code?
Thanks for this!
January 9, 2008 9:06 AM
said:@Thomas:
Thanks, I'm glad this is useful for you. This method will indeed work with the newer ga.js code. Thanks for reading!
January 9, 2008 5:46 PM
Wow, great tip! Thanx very much! This is much easier and comfortable than the instructions provided by Google. Haven't tested it yet, but guess it works with Blogger, right?
August 13, 2008 12:17 PM
said:@Ky:
This method will work fine with Blogger (and any Google Analytics installation at all). Thanks for reading!
August 13, 2008 1:15 PM
Great solution! I am using this on a DNN site. I use a product called KeepAlive which calls the site every 10 minutes to make sure the asp apps keep running and the site loads quickly. This allows me to use that product without counting the hits as actual traffic...very cool.
October 29, 2008 9:30 AM
said:@Greg:
Thanks! I'm glad this could help.
October 31, 2008 8:28 AM
I would love to make this work. its even here:
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55481
but, the filter type only drops down to:
Exclude all traffic from a domain
-or-
exclude all traffic from an IP
I guess they changed things? but even the above^ help section is out-dated. what do i do??
May 1, 2009 10:56 AM
said:@Jon:
I can't explain why you are only seeing two options in the filter dropdown - there are typically four (which has been the case for some time). The only thing I can think of is maybe you are not an Administrative user? I can think of no other reason why you wouldn't be seeing the other options.
May 5, 2009 8:39 AM
No, I created the account myself, so I am the admin (haven't even created any other users). I'll try on a completely separate Google account and let you know if its just a freak thing with this one.
Nice work Shawn!
So I guess you also want to ask them to bookmark that page & only use that from now on...
but does this then work as they move to other pages within the site?
Aren't the tags only good for that pageview?
cheers,
mike
November 20, 2007 4:23 PM