How to excle your own visits in Google analytics
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Original Post
Since I figured out earlier today I thought it may be useful to someone else here:
If you want to exclude your own visits from GA you need to set this up on your GA account and here is how:
SHORT VERSION
read this:
www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=5...
find your IP here:
whatismyipaddress.com/
STEP BY STEP:
►go to the homepage of GA,
►find on the bottom right of the page FILTER MANAGER
►click it
►in the new page click on the gray tab "+ADD NEW FILTER"
►in the new page add a name (what you want) in the blank field "Filter name"
►in the "Filter Type" drop-down menu select EXCLUDE ALL TRAFFIC FROM AN IP ADDRESS
►choose which website you want to "Apply Filter to Website Profiles" (i.e. yourshop.etsy.com) and click ADD
►in the next new page the IP address field will be already filled in (be careful that is just an fictional IP used as an example for the right formatting of the number)
►enter your value that can be found here (►http://whatismyipaddress.com/)
*REMEMBER* the right format for the IP number has a \ before each dot, example if you have 176.168.1.1 then the IP address value will be:176\.168\.1\.1
Posted at 5:59pm Jan 9, 2009 EST
Responses
Now that it's morning and I'm fully awake, I need to make an amendment to the instructions I posted last night. In my earlier instructions, I had everyone setting a cookie with the same name for their shop. However, since the cookie is set for the whole Etsy domain, if everyone's cookies have the same name, we will end up excluding visits from other sellers as well. This isn't hard to avoid, we just need to give our cookies unique names. Below are my revised steps:
1) Go to your Etsy website.
2) Copy the following line of code to your clipboard:
javascript:pageTracker._setVar('YOURSTORENAME_exclude_me');
3) Paste the copied line of code into your location bar at the top of your web browser (the place where you enter website URLs and currently see your shop URL), but don't press enter yet! Replace YOURSTORENAME with your store name (no spaces or special characters). Press Enter. The cookie is now set.
4) Now, you need to tell GA to exclude any traffic from browsers that have that cookie. On the first page when you log into GA (the page with that green checkmark telling you the status is good) you will see in the lower right hand corner, "Filter Manager." Click this.
5) In the gray bar that says "Existing Filters," Click the "Add Filter" link.
6) Fill in the page as follows:
Filter Name -- Type any name you choose here.
Filter Type -- Custom Filter (and make sure the Exclude radio button is checked)
Filter Field -- User Defined
Filter Pattern -- Type in the following, replacing YOURSTORENAME with the same string you used in step 3: YOURSTORENAME_exclude_me
Case Sensitive -- no
In the "Apply Filter to Website Profiles" section, highlight your site in the box on the left, the click "Add" to move it to the right.
7) Click "Save Changes"
8) You're done! Traffic from the current computer will now be excluded from your reports. Note that this will only filter out traffic from your computer AFTER you've set the cookie.
I've been monitoring my traffic on GA since I set my cookies last night, and so far so good. I'm not seeing my own traffic.
Posted at 1:18pm Jan 11, 2009 EST
If you've followed the steps I've outlined to set your cookie, you'll notice that you don't get any feedback from your browser to tell you that the cookie was successfully set.
If you use Firefox, here's how you can verify it:
1) In your browser, go to the Tools->Options menu.
2) Click on the Privacy icon.
3) Click on the Show Cookies button.
4) In the search box, type Etsy. You will now see all the cookies set for Etsy.
5) Scroll down in the box, and you should find a cookie where the "Cookie Name" is __utmv. If you click on it, you will info about it in the lower pane. For Content, you will see NUMBER.YOURSTORENAME_exclude_me.
If you can view this cookie, you know it was set properly.
Posted at 1:25pm Jan 11, 2009 EST
Marking because I'm on my BF's dial-up and not my own Internet, with static IP.
Posted at 1:25pm Jan 11, 2009 EST
I am so amazed at people who understand how to do this stuff. Thank you so much for sharing with us all!!!
Posted at 1:42pm Jan 11, 2009 EST
notapotato, I set the cookie, and I can see it in the options window, but it says that it expire at the end of the session.
Does this mean that I have to set it each time I start a new section?
Posted at 4:46pm Jan 11, 2009 EST
Frucci,
No, you should not have to set the cookie each time you start a new session. It should last for a long time. For example, mine says that it won't expire until 2011.
I wonder if you have your browser set up to clear cookies each time you close it? There are a few possibilities here...do you have your browser set to clear private data each time you close it? One of the options there is to have it clear cookies each time. Otherwise, take a look under Tools->Settings and see what you have selected for "Keep Until" in the Cookies section. Does it say "Keep until they expire," or something else?
I set the cookie on two different computers here, and both of them got the 2011 date.
Posted at 4:55pm Jan 11, 2009 EST
