5 ways to exclude your own visits from Google Analytics

It is quite annoying that our Google Analytics traffic statistics are adversely affected by our own visits or those of any member of our team (internal traffic). Even more in early stages of websites, while still receives little traffic and our activity is a greater percentage compared to the total activity. Not only modifies appreciably the number of visits per se, but also the number of page views per visit, bounce rate and average time spent per user among many other parameters. This makes sense, as it is when we spend more time reviewing each and every one of our web pages or performing unfinished development tasks.

There exists different methods to prevent your own visits are tracked by Google Analytics. Each one has advantages and disadvantages, so there is no star method that can be recommended with no doubt in any situation. In this article I try to show you a collection of the most important and widespread methods focusing mainly on their pros and cons. At the end of each method I link to some other articles which explain in detail how to implement them.

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1. Server side or backend method

This is my favorite method, but its implementation is not feasible in all cases. It consists in preventing the Google Analytics tracking code is included within the HTML code returned by the server when you request a page from your own website. For example, you can configure your server to not include the tracking code when the source IP address is that of your office or home.

Pros

• It is the safest and most reliable method, since it is physically impossible for a visit to be recorded if there is no tracking code at all.
• You have absolute control over which visits count and which not, so you don’t depend on any oversights or omissions from your employees or collaborators as in other methods described below.
• It allows use of public IP addresses both fixed and dynamic, so it is a suitable method for organizations of all sizes and for individual users.
• Suitable for all kinds of browsers and devices, whether desktop PCs, tablets or mobile phones.

Cons

• It will not work properly if you have enabled a caching system that displays a static version of the pages visited. You can solve this problem by having non-cached pages to be displayed when it comes to internal views. Depending on how your application and caching system is built this solution may or may not be viable. If you contact me I can tell you if this solution is suitable for you or not and help in its implementation.

Implementation

• In this article I show you how to accomplish this solution in a PHP application, but also applicable to other platforms:
  

  Recommended reading:
    How to exclude your own [dynamic] ip from Google Analytics

• Using a Google Analytics plugin specific for your application (if it exists) which doesn’t record visits from certain users, such as administrators, editors or authors. For example, this plugin for WordPress: Google Analytics for WordPress.

2. Google Analytics filtering

Consists in using Google Analytics filtering feature which allows you to exclude visits based on a lot of different parameters such as IP address or source domain, search terms, page titles, etc. For our purpose filtering by IP address or source domain is the ideal choice, as it will allow you to exclude all traffic from your office, for example. Therefore it is a good method for small or large companies that can afford a fixed IP address for their Internet connection, and it is better the larger the size of the company and the number of its geographical locations.

Pros

• Google’s native solution, reliable and flexible.
• Allows full control on exclusion parameters.
• Suitable for any size companies and organizations provided they have fixed public IP address.

Cons

• Does not allow dynamic IP addresses, so it is not suitable for most small organizations or individual users as bloggers, for example.

Implementation

• How To Stop Google Analytics From Tracking My Visits
• How to Stop Google Analytics Showing Your Visits To Your Site

3. Google Analytics filter based on a cookie-stored custom var

Consists of installing a special cookie that does not expire and has a unique name that will help you to differentiate your own browsers which have this cookie installed (internal traffic), from those belonging to other visitors.

Pros

• Simple and flexible solution.
• Works on all browsers and all devices, including mobile phones and tablets.
• It works properly with dynamic IP addresses, so it is suitable for all users.

Cons

• Can be quite expensive, because you have to make an effort to set the exclusion cookie in all browsers on all devices that you will use. This effort may be excessive if your team is made up of many people who in turn use a variety of devices.
• The reliability of this method is not very high, as it doesn’t prevent internal users can delete their browser cookies and then forget to reinstall the exclusion cookie, or forget about installing it when starting to use a new device. You can alleviate the problem by using the localStorage feature of HTML5, since the values you store there do not expire or get deleted when you remove cookies from your browser.
• In order to increase reliability you’ll have to increase your effort, and therefore cost, as you’ll have to regularly review the exclusion cookie is present in all corporate devices. So it is a solution only suitable for small organizations and individual users.

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Implementation

• Stop Google Analytics Tracking Your Own Visits
• How to Exclude Internal Traffic from Google Analytics when Internal IP Address is Dynamic
• Filter your visits in Google Analytics (Do not track your IP)
• How do you exclude yourself from Google Analytics on your website using cookies?

4. Browser extension

Consists of installing your browser an extension which blocks the Google Analytics tracking script in order to not count your own visits. There are this kind of extensions available for almost all browsers, including one authored by Google. However the latter is too restrictive and blocks the tracking code from all websites you visit, which would disrupt other third party sites that have nothing to do with you.

There are better extensions, but only work in certain browsers.

Pros

• Some extensions work well and fulfill its purpose perfectly.
• Simple solution for small groups and individual users.

Cons

• Normally you have to install different extensions for different browsers.
• If you have a large number of work places used to visit your own website (i.e. a company with many employees), managing the installation and maintenance of these extensions can be costly in time and effort.
• Medium-low reliability, because it’s not easy to control someone using a different browser, or disabling the extension for some reason. If you ever visit your website from another computer or browser that does not have the extension installed, then the visit will be recorded.
• Extensions consume browser resources, and therefore computer resources.
• Normally tablet and mobile browsers do not support extensions., so this solution is only suitable for desktop computers.

Implementation

• Block Yourself from Analytics (Google Chrome).
• Google Disconnect (Firefox).

5. Add a variable to your web address stating that visit not to be tracked

This method is very unreliable but may be of interest in certain scenarios, such as development or testing environments. It involves accessing your website by placing an extra URL variable to state you don’t want that visit to be tracked. There are two modes: the server interprets the variable to not include the tracking code within the response’s HTML code, or the tracking script is blocked into the user’s browser using extra javascript code.

https://www.yoursite.com?test=1

<?php
if (!isset($_GET['test’]))
{
?>
<!--PUT GOOGLE TRACKING CODE HERE-->
<?php } ?>

Pros

• You can control at all times which visits are to be tracked and which not, which may be useful in testing environments.
• It is relatively simple to implement.

Cons

• You can’t control other members of your team will always remember to properly set the URL variable before accessing the site when you don’t want the visit to be counted.
• In fact it is a rather awkward method even for ourselves and we can also make mistakes or forget to set the variable.
• You must implement a mechanism to preserve the variable each time you jump to another page on your website by clicking on a link, i.e. using session variables or cookies.

Implementation

• Hide Your Visits from Google Analytics
• How can I get query string values in JavaScript?