Semalt: Tips On How To Filter Internal Traffic From Google Analytics
Did you know that your own visits, commonly referred to as internal traffic can adversely affect Google Analytics statistics? During the early stages of your campaign, your activities tend to affect your reports as your websites receive little traffic during that time. Internal traffic affects not only the number of visits recorded in the Google Analytics, but also the average time spent by visitors on your site, the bounce rate, and other important parameters.
Some tools have been put forward to track down your daily visits and the traffic generated by internal parameters. However, each metric method comprises of merits and demerits. Google Analytics helps marketers to track down the traffic generated by internal visits. Balancing of both internal and external traffic is a necessity to have an effective campaign in the long run.
Frank Abagnale, the Semalt Customer Success Manager, presents the list of ways that will help you to select the best method that will favor your campaign, and how to implement it.
The Google Analytics Filtering Feature
This is one of the commonly used features that work to filter out domains, page titles, and IP addresses. Filtering out the source domain and the IP address is considered as the ideal choice to restrict your internal visits from affecting your reports and statistics. The filtering feature allows content marketers and website owners to exclude all features related to the internal environment.
According to experts, Google Analytics filtering tool blocks Trojan virus and malware from generating fake traffic.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Using The Filtering Feature
Google Analytics filtering tool allows marketers to have full control of the website operations. Also, the tool offers both flexible and reliable solutions. On the other hand, Google filtering tool is not recommended for small organizations and companies.
Google Analytics Special Cookie
This helpful tool differentiates internal and external traffic. In the long run, it blocks internal traffic from taking control of your reports.
Pros- Recommended for small organizations
- Offers flexible and simple solutions
- Not suitable for large organizations.
- Quite expensive due to the cost incurred by paying professionals
The Server Side Method
Commonly referred as the backend method, the server side method allows website owners to configure their servers. By doing so, the tracking code of internal traffic, malware, and the Trojan virus is restricted from being recorded down in the statistics.
Pros- Considered as the safest and reliable technique
- Allows marketers to use both the dynamic and fixed IP addresses
- Convenient to all kind of browsers
- Does not deliver consistent returns on caching system with static versions of the page visited.
When it comes to marketing, generating traffic and boosting users' engagement is very important. However, traffic generated from internal environment tends to affect reports and statistics adversely in the algorithms. The above-discussed tools and techniques will help you to remove and restrict internal traffic from affecting your Google Analytics report. After filtering out the traffic generated from your office, consider implementing the changes effectively.