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<h1 class="entry-title">Google Analytics - Excluding Your Own Visits in Development and Production</h1>
<p class="meta">
<time datetime="2012-08-28T00:00:00-04:00" pubdate data-updated="true">Aug 28<span>th</span>, 2012</time>
| <a href="#disqus_thread">Comments</a>
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<div class="entry-content"><p>Googling how to exclude your own <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a> traffic returns a plethora of results, however, nearly all of them advocate 1 of 2 approaches:</p>
<ul>
<li>Creating an IP filter in Google Analytics itself <a href="http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1034840&rd=1">(example)</a>.</li>
<li>Creating a page that sets a cookie which tells Google Analytics to exclude the traffic <a href="http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/15552/how-do-you-exclude-yourself-from-google-analytics-on-your-website-using-cookies">(example)</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Problems</h3>
<p>These approaches are silly in my opinion. IP addresses change. In fact, most ISPs change subscriber’s IP addresses quite regularly. Furthermore, most people visit their site on a wide variety of devices in a wide variety of places. Maintaining a list of IP addresses in Google Analytics would be a nightmare.</p>
<p>The cookie approach works, but it is a pain to have to create and maintain the page that sets the cookie. It’s also problematic because verifying whether the cookie is actually active is difficult. Do you know where your browser stores your cookies and how to access them? How about your smart phone? Because of this you end up constantly having to create the cookie before accessing the site, which is a nuisance.</p>
<h3>JavaScript</h3>
<p>Both these approaches seem especially silly considering how easy it is to simply accomplish this with JavaScript. You can simply check for the exclusion criteria before including the Google Analytics code snippet.</p>
<!--more-->
<h3>Excluding localhost Traffic</h3>
<p>If you test your site on a local server you likely don’t want that traffic being logged. Assuming that your local server is using <code>localhost</code> as the hostname the following will exclude the traffic.</p>
<figure class='code'><figcaption class='not_empty'><span>Excluding localhost Traffic</span></figcaption><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span>
<span class='line-number'>2</span>
<span class='line-number'>3</span>
<span class='line-number'>4</span>
<span class='line-number'>5</span>
<span class='line-number'>6</span>
<span class='line-number'>7</span>
<span class='line-number'>8</span>
<span class='line-number'>9</span>
<span class='line-number'>10</span>
<span class='line-number'>11</span>
<span class='line-number'>12</span>
<span class='line-number'>13</span>
</pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class='javascript'><span class='line'><span class="o"><</span><span class="nx">script</span><span class="o">></span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">window</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">host</span> <span class="o">!=</span> <span class="s1">'localhost'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">_gaq</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">_gaq</span> <span class="o">||</span> <span class="p">[];</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">_gaq</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">push</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">'_setAccount'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'UA-12345678-1'</span><span class="p">]);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">_gaq</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">push</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">'_trackPageview'</span><span class="p">]);</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">function</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">ga</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">createElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'script'</span><span class="p">);</span> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">type</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'text/javascript'</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">async</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">src</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'https:'</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">protocol</span> <span class="o">?</span> <span class="s1">'https://ssl'</span> <span class="o">:</span> <span class="s1">'http://www'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">'.google-analytics.com/ga.js'</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">getElementsByTagName</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'script'</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">];</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">parentNode</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">insertBefore</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">})();</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'><span class="o"><</span><span class="err">/script></span>
</span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure>
<h3>Excluding Production Traffic</h3>
<p>While the above works great during development it won’t help you when you’re accessing your site on its live production server. For that I would suggest using a request parameter.</p>
<p>For example if your site is <code>http://mysite.com</code> then you could visit <code>http://mysite.com?analytics=off</code> to exclude the logging. The following script makes it so that any page view with the appropriate <code>analytics=off</code> request parameter is not logged.</p>
<figure class='code'><figcaption class='not_empty'><span>Excluding Production Traffic via a Request Parameter</span></figcaption><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span>
<span class='line-number'>2</span>
<span class='line-number'>3</span>
<span class='line-number'>4</span>
<span class='line-number'>5</span>
<span class='line-number'>6</span>
<span class='line-number'>7</span>
<span class='line-number'>8</span>
<span class='line-number'>9</span>
<span class='line-number'>10</span>
<span class='line-number'>11</span>
<span class='line-number'>12</span>
<span class='line-number'>13</span>
<span class='line-number'>14</span>
<span class='line-number'>15</span>
<span class='line-number'>16</span>
<span class='line-number'>17</span>
<span class='line-number'>18</span>
<span class='line-number'>19</span>
<span class='line-number'>20</span>
<span class='line-number'>21</span>
<span class='line-number'>22</span>
<span class='line-number'>23</span>
<span class='line-number'>24</span>
<span class='line-number'>25</span>
<span class='line-number'>26</span>
<span class='line-number'>27</span>
<span class='line-number'>28</span>
<span class='line-number'>29</span>
<span class='line-number'>30</span>
<span class='line-number'>31</span>
<span class='line-number'>32</span>
</pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class='javascript'><span class='line'><span class="o"><</span><span class="nx">script</span><span class="o">></span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">try</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="c1">//Turn off analytics if 'analytics=off' is included as a request parameter.</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">window</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">search</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">split</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'&'</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">])</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">].</span><span class="nx">replace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'?'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">''</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o"><</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">length</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">i</span><span class="o">++</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">values</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="nx">i</span><span class="p">].</span><span class="nx">split</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'='</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">values</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="s1">'analytics'</span> <span class="o">&&</span> <span class="nx">values</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="s1">'off'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">false</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span> <span class="k">catch</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">e</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="c1">//Just in case something goes wrong...</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">useAnalytics</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">_gaq</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">_gaq</span> <span class="o">||</span> <span class="p">[];</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">_gaq</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">push</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">'_setAccount'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'UA-12345678-1'</span><span class="p">]);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">_gaq</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">push</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">'_trackPageview'</span><span class="p">]);</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">function</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">ga</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">createElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'script'</span><span class="p">);</span> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">type</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'text/javascript'</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">async</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">src</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'https:'</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">protocol</span> <span class="o">?</span> <span class="s1">'https://ssl'</span> <span class="o">:</span> <span class="s1">'http://www'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">'.google-analytics.com/ga.js'</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">getElementsByTagName</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'script'</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">];</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">parentNode</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">insertBefore</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">})();</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'><span class="o"><</span><span class="err">/script></span>
</span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure>
<p>With this approach you could simply create a bookmark with the request parameter in the URL and use that to access the site.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it would be easy to add on code to <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/document.cookie">set a cookie</a> or utilize <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/Storage#localStorage">localStorage</a> to save the preference so you don’t have to always include the request parameter.</p>
<h3>Combining the Approaches</h3>
<p>In case you want to include both of these here’s a code snippet that makes it so that both <code>localhost</code> traffic and pages with a <code>analytics=off</code> request parameter are excluded.</p>
<figure class='code'><figcaption class='not_empty'><span>The Final Exclusion Script</span></figcaption><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span>
<span class='line-number'>2</span>
<span class='line-number'>3</span>
<span class='line-number'>4</span>
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</pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class='javascript'><span class='line'><span class="o"><</span><span class="nx">script</span><span class="o">></span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">try</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="c1">//Turn off analytics if 'analytics=off' is included as a request parameter.</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">window</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">search</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">split</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'&'</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">])</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">].</span><span class="nx">replace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'?'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">''</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o"><</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">length</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">i</span><span class="o">++</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">values</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">parameters</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="nx">i</span><span class="p">].</span><span class="nx">split</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'='</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">values</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="s1">'analytics'</span> <span class="o">&&</span> <span class="nx">values</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="s1">'off'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">false</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="c1">//Turn off analytics if 'localhost' is the host</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">window</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">host</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="s1">'localhost'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">false</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span> <span class="k">catch</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">e</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="c1">//Just in case something goes wrong...</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">useAnalytics</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">useAnalytics</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">_gaq</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">_gaq</span> <span class="o">||</span> <span class="p">[];</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">_gaq</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">push</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">'_setAccount'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'UA-29179796-1'</span><span class="p">]);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">_gaq</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">push</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">'_trackPageview'</span><span class="p">]);</span>
</span><span class='line'>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">function</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">ga</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">createElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'script'</span><span class="p">);</span> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">type</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'text/javascript'</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">async</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">true</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">src</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'https:'</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">location</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">protocol</span> <span class="o">?</span> <span class="s1">'https://ssl'</span> <span class="o">:</span> <span class="s1">'http://www'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">'.google-analytics.com/ga.js'</span><span class="p">;</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">getElementsByTagName</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'script'</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">];</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">parentNode</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">insertBefore</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">ga</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">);</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">})();</span>
</span><span class='line'> <span class="p">}</span>
</span><span class='line'><span class="o"><</span><span class="err">/script></span>
</span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure>
<p>If you have any other recommendations for how to exclude Google Analytics traffic let me know in the comments.</p>
<h3>Update (January 1st, 2013)</h3>
<p>Reader Aaron Hillyer has created a WordPress plugin to implement the request parameter exclusion approach, <a href="http://socialmediabar.com/enhanced-google-analytics-tracking">check it out</a>.</p>
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<span class="byline author vcard">Posted by <span class="fn">TJ VanToll</span></span>
<time datetime="2012-08-28T00:00:00-04:00" pubdate data-updated="true">Aug 28<span>th</span>, 2012</time>
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