Google Analytics - IP filters

Most site owners and webmasters have Google Analytics on their website, but very few are aware of how powerful and feature-rich the service is. With the right knowledge and correct setup, Google Analytics can be used as an extremely powerful marketing and data mining tool.

Before we can start diving in and analysing our data we should first ensure there is no erroneous data here - by erroneous I mean data collected from visits by staff, either in-house or externally, that you have working for you. To do this we would use the IP filter. For low-traffic sites, it is especially important that Google Analytics is as accurate as possible, particularly if you use the data to make future marketing predictions and decisions.

The IP filter manager can be found in the bottom right hand side of the “Analytics Settings” page.

Where to find the IP filter manager

There are several types of filter that can be set up including filtering visits to your site’s sub-domains or filtering referrals from an entire website. However, the option that we are looking at is “exclude all traffic from an IP address”.

Creating a new filter

If you want to ensure your visits to the site are not included in Analytics, simply select this option and add your IP address. Remember, the IP address must be added using a regular expression: make sure you escape the . with \. for instance 0\.0\.0\.0 not just 0.0.0.0.

Filtering your IP address

You can find your public IP address quickly by visiting www.whatismyip.com. Make sure you get any external agents to give you their IP addresses so you can remove their traffic and keep your data as accurate as possible.

If you need help or advice with setting up Google Analytics filters, contact StormForward Ltd.