Use Google Analytics To Exclude Your Own IP Address

Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 22 of February , 2008 at 10:33 am

Google Analytics will help you with more accurate reporting. To get a more accurate account of your page views, click throughs, and conversion percentages you need to exclude your own IP address from the counts. When you visit your own website you will be logged as a visitor just like everyone else unless you filter your IP address from the equation. Not filtering your IP address will lead to watered down results.

For example, if you have 100 pay per click visits to your website and 20 of those result in sales conversions you will have a conversion rate of 20%. But if you visited your website 20 of those times then your conversion rate should in reality be 80/20, not 100/20, which is a 25% conversion rate. That’s why it is important to use the Google Analytics filter.

Log into your Google Analytics account. Below your website profiles you’ll see three links:

• Add Website Profile (on the left)
• Asset Manager (in the middle)
• Filter Manager (on the right)

Click on Filter Manager. Now click on “Add Filter” in the top right corner of the gray bar. Put a name in the Filter Name box then click on the drop down box below that field and select Exclude All Traffic From An IP Address. In the IP Address field you’ll see a sample IP address. That is a fictional sample, not a real address. You’ll have to replace the numbers will the numbers of your own IP address, but be careful not to edit out the back slashes or the dots. Next, select the websites that your filter will apply to. You can filter a range of IP addresses by including the range in the form of ([1-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-5])$ where your last set of numbers in the IP address appears. Here’s an example:

^65\.24\.132\.([1-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-5])$This will block IP addresses between 65.24.132.1 and 65.24.132.25.Click “Finish” and you are done. Now you should be able to get more accurate results from your Google Analytics, especially concerning your conversion rates. Be careful when testing the results, however. You don’t want Google to close your AdSense account because you decided to test your click-throughs on your ads. If you visit your website and Google Analytics doesn’t log you as a visitor then you know it’s working. You can further test it by purchasing your product to see if Google Analytics registers the sale as a conversion. But DO NOT click on your AdSense ads.  Make the most out of your pay per click management.

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Category: Analytics

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