How to exclude your IPs from Google Analytics

In this article we are going to explain in a simple way how to perform one of the Google Analytics configuration actions that you should always apply to obtain reliable web analytics data, either to exclude your own IP or that of a worker, such as one that you do not want to take into account.

In a previous article we explained how to exclude from Analytics visits coming from SPAM, and today we are going to explain how to exclude your own visits, visits to your website from your devices, or from any company device. So if you want to exclude an IP in Universal Analytics or Analytics 4, we tell you step by step.

How to exclude your visits from Analytics (Universal Analytics)?

Through your IPs. You have to exclude the IP of the company's devices, in order to exclude your visits from Google Analytics. To do this you must:

1. Log in to your Analytics session
2. Click at the top, in the "Admin" section.
3. In the right column called "VIEW", select the option "Filters".
4. Red button "ADD FILTER".
5. Give it a name
6. Select the type of filter. The standard for this filter would be to select "Predefined", "Exclude", "Traffic from IP addresses", "which are equal to".
7. Where it says IP Address, type it in and hit save.

And that's it, you have now excluded your IP from Analytics. If you have several IPs in your company, then depending on the volume, you can decide whether to exclude them all one by one, or evaluate the other filtering options offered by Analytics, such as the host or others.

How to exclude an IP from Analytics 4?

With the arrival of Analytics 4 as Google's main analytics platform, things have changed. Many processes are now done differently. One of them is to exclude your own visits from Analytics 4 or to exclude an IP from the data.

In this case, Analytics 4 gives us two options to do this:

• Mark an IP as internal traffic (or the 'traffic_type' of your choice). That is, to label it as a type of traffic and be able to differentiate it from the rest of the visits.
• Exclude an IP directly. So that Analytics 4 does not include this data in its results.

Therefore, first we can and must identify the traffic that comes from an IP as a specific type of 'traffic_type'. And then, we have the option to activate a filter to exclude a specific traffic_type. So, if we first mark that the traffic coming from an IP, for example, is internal, we can then apply a filter to exclude internal traffic. And since we will have marked that IP within this group, we will exclude its traffic. Let's look at it step by step.

Exclude my visits from Analytics 4, step by step

Take note, as this process is a bit long and is hidden in the configuration options.

1. Inside the Analytics 4 dashboard, on the bottom left, click on the gear icon, Manage.
2. Once inside, in the middle column, we go to the option called Data Flows.
3. We click on the Stream in which we want to identify that IP. Upon entering, a variety of options will appear.
4. At the bottom of the screen, we find the option Configure tag settings.
5. When the panel opens, it is very important to look carefully to click on the option in the Settings drop-down, where it says "Show all" (we leave you an image below).
6. Finally, we will find what we are looking for: "Define internal traffic".
7. There we can create a rule. It gives us the option to give it a traffic_type value, which is the parameter that we can later exclude. So, give it the name that best allows you to identify it and then put the IP Address and the type of match (if it is a specific IP, you can put "is equal to").

Now that we have identified an IP and assigned it a value, it is time to exclude this value from the traffic of Analytics 4.

1. In the Dashboard, we go back to Manage (gear icon at the bottom).
2. In the central Property column, we find the Data Settings option.
3. In the drop-down of this option, we must enter Data Filters.
4. At the top right, click on Create filter.
5. Choose the Internal Traffic option.
6. And finally, we can name the filter, select the exclude option and choose the value of the parameter we want to exclude (in this case, the traffic_type value we have defined. If we have not modified it, it is 'internal').

Once we have done these two steps, first identify the traffic, and then exclude it, we will have successfully excluded an IP from Analytics 4. Information is power!