Google Analytics is very important for measuring and analyzing the traffic of your website. It provides a robust insight of your site performance such as page-views, user engagement, and click through rate (CTR) of your site.
But all of this important data can go in vain if you don’t stop Google from including your own activities in the analytics report. Because Google considers each and every activity you do on your website as genuine as it comes from a real user.
So, can you stop google from tracking your own visits? Yes, there are a few ways to stop Google Analytics from tracking your own visits, but the easiest way I found is by installing one of the following free browser plugins; “Block Yourself from Analytics” and “Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on“
When Google Analytics Tracks Your Own Visits?
While you write, edit, design or preview various pages of your site, Google considers each and every of those activity as genuine as it comes from a typical real user. But in reality, it’s actually you who’s playing around with the site. Thereby you unknowingly alter the accuracy of your website’s analytic report.
Can You Block Google Analytics?
By default Google Analytics doesn’t block itself from tracking the logged users (such as the admins & authors) activities of a site. You can either force Google Analytics to exclude your IP address from being tracked or block its JavaScript code from being executed on your browser all together.
You may be thinking that both options require you to have technical skills, but let me assure you that it’s not. I’ll guide you through all of the processes till the end.
– Exclude Your IP From The Google Analytics
Google Analytics has its own in-built option where you can exclude your internet IP address from being tracked. So that Google doesn’t include your website activity records into the analytics report.
But this approach does not work if your internet service provider (ISP) doesn’t assign you a static IP address. Unfortunately nowadays almost 90% of all ISPs assign dynamic IP addresses to it’s users. Because it’s more cost effective, both for you and the internet service provider. Now the question arises;
How Do You Know If You Have A Static Or Dynamic IP Address?
Well, if you did not request your internet service provider for a static IP address, they probably assigned you with a dynamic IP address. Dynamic IP addresses can be changed at any time. Some ISPs change their assigned IP address every day and some every week or month. Simply put, you don’t know when you’ll be on a new IP address.
So this option is not fully reliable. Although if you have a static IP address, then follow the given instructions to exclude your IP from Google Analytics. It will allow you to create a filter that blocks your activities from being shown in the analytics report.
Step #1: Login to your Google Analytics
This step is self-explanatory. Login to your google account and open the google analytics page.
Step #2: Click on the Admin
It is located at the bottom-left side of the page.
Step #3: Click on the Filters
This option lets you add the IP address which you want to be excluded from the tracking data.
Step #4: Click on Add Filter
Add a new filter and fill out the details.
Step #5: Give the filter a name
This needs no explanation, just give the newly created filter a name.
Step #6: Now select Predefined as the filter type
Select Exclude from the drop-down menu, then Traffic From IP Address and That Are Equal To As shown in the following screenshot.
Step #7: Add IP Address Into The Field
Now the final step; go to https://www.whatsmyip.org/ -> copy your IP Address -> and paste it into the IP Address Field.
Step #8: Save the filter
Now enjoy; Google Analytics will not track your activity from now on.
– Install Browser Plugin
There are a few ways to stop Google Analytics from tracking your own visits, but the easiest way I found is by installing one of the following free browser plugins.
Google Analytics Opt-Out Extension
There are many plugins that have the same feature of blocking google analytics on your browser. “Google Analytics Opt-Out Extension” is one of them. It’s a browser plugin that’s directly offered by Google itself. However the extension comes with a downside.
It does not completely block out the entire analytics JavaScript code, rather it only blocks the tracking events from being sent to the Google server. Simply put, Google still knows about your website activities but doesn’t record them in the analytics report.
Block Yourself from Analytics
This is my favorite browser plugin to block my own site activities from being recorded by Google Analytics. It’s a fail-proof plugin and I use it for myself. It is available both for Chrome and Firefox.
- Install the plugin
- Open your site
- Check “Block Analytics for this site”
You have now successfully blocked Google Analytics from tracking your own visits.
