When tracking various elements within Google Analytics, you may want to exclude your IP address to avoid inaccurate tracking.
Once you set up your tracking code for your domain, Google reads every bit of traffic that arrives on your site including yourself ie (when you make daily adjustments to your website).
To avoid being tracked, we need to set our filter within Google Analytics that will exclude our IP address, but before we dive into this we need to access our IP address.
Just a quick definition of IP address - Every device connected to the public Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses consist of four number sets separated by periods (also called a 'dotted-quad') and look something like 127.0.0.1. or 123.12.456.789 (source http://whatismyipaddress.com/)
There are 2 types of IP addresses - Dynamic and Static
Dynamic - Dynamic IP addressing assigns a different IP address each time the ISP customer logs on to their computer, but this is dependent upon the Internet Service Provider (ISP) because some ISP's only change the IP address as they deem it necessary.
Static - If you feel the need to always know what your IP address is then you need a Static IP address, because it is constant. In contrast a static IP address can become a security risk, because the address is always the same.
So what does this mean ? It basically means that most people have a Dynamic address that changes either when they turn off their modem or the IP address assigned by your ISP (internet service provider) changes periodically.
Please see the last point as this will sum up your required action!
Once you set up your tracking code for your domain, Google reads every bit of traffic that arrives on your site including yourself ie (when you make daily adjustments to your website).
To avoid being tracked, we need to set our filter within Google Analytics that will exclude our IP address, but before we dive into this we need to access our IP address.
Just a quick definition of IP address - Every device connected to the public Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses consist of four number sets separated by periods (also called a 'dotted-quad') and look something like 127.0.0.1. or 123.12.456.789 (source http://whatismyipaddress.com/)
There are 2 types of IP addresses - Dynamic and Static
Dynamic - Dynamic IP addressing assigns a different IP address each time the ISP customer logs on to their computer, but this is dependent upon the Internet Service Provider (ISP) because some ISP's only change the IP address as they deem it necessary.
Static - If you feel the need to always know what your IP address is then you need a Static IP address, because it is constant. In contrast a static IP address can become a security risk, because the address is always the same.
So what does this mean ? It basically means that most people have a Dynamic address that changes either when they turn off their modem or the IP address assigned by your ISP (internet service provider) changes periodically.
Please see the last point as this will sum up your required action!
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JohnnyMark1
Premium Plus
Great tutorial BlueDot.
I've been setting up IP filters for four of my sites recently. I had originally applied one filter to exclude my IP address at the account level, then included the individual website profiles that I wanted the filter to effect. However, I recently discovered a note within Google Analytics, which recommended creating a second profile for each website, one with filters applied, and one profile without any filters at all. Here is their note:
"We recommend that you maintain one unfiltered profile so that all data is available for your web property. You can configure additional more restrictive profiles as necessary.
To create a new profile, click + New Profile."
So I deleted my over-arching filter from the account, created a second profile for each of my four websites with the description "WebsiteName - Exclude IP", and applied the 'exclude IP' filter to just those profiles, as per Google Analytics recommendation. Now I have two profiles for each website, one profile that tracks everything, and one profile that excludes my IP address from being tracked.
This is recommended by Google Analytics in case there is a problem with the filter, and so you can compare the two profiles for each site.
-John
I've been setting up IP filters for four of my sites recently. I had originally applied one filter to exclude my IP address at the account level, then included the individual website profiles that I wanted the filter to effect. However, I recently discovered a note within Google Analytics, which recommended creating a second profile for each website, one with filters applied, and one profile without any filters at all. Here is their note:
"We recommend that you maintain one unfiltered profile so that all data is available for your web property. You can configure additional more restrictive profiles as necessary.
To create a new profile, click + New Profile."
So I deleted my over-arching filter from the account, created a second profile for each of my four websites with the description "WebsiteName - Exclude IP", and applied the 'exclude IP' filter to just those profiles, as per Google Analytics recommendation. Now I have two profiles for each website, one profile that tracks everything, and one profile that excludes my IP address from being tracked.
This is recommended by Google Analytics in case there is a problem with the filter, and so you can compare the two profiles for each site.
-John
