5 Must Have Google Analytics Filters
Creating Google Analytics filters in your profile is one of the most important things you do as you set up your GA profile. This powerful feature allows you to include, exclude, search and replace and even build custom filters. But you also have to be careful not to be filtering out traffic you mean to track and analyze. Before we begin, locate the Filter Manager in Google Analytics and click the link to enter the Filter Manager.
Click Filter Manager Then Click Add Your Filter
1. Include My Site Traffic
Because Google Analytic only requires a single piece of JavaScript on your page, it is susceptible to being copied and placed on another site. This could have devastating effects to your data’s integrity. Here is a simple way to make sure that only your site’s traffic is monitored.
On the Edit Filter screen:
Enter Filter Name: Include My Site Traffic
Filter Type: Select Custom from the drop down menu
Choose Custom Type: Select Include from the radio buttons
Filter Field: Select Hostname from the drop down menu
Filter Pattern: Enter ^yourdomainname\.com$
Choose Case Sensitive: Decide whether you want the filter to be case sensitive or not
Lastly, select the profile you want to apply the filter to and press Save Changes. Now your profile will only accept traffic data from your domain.
2. Exclude Internal Traffic
With Google Analytics you can set what traffic you want to exclude. A good place to begin is with the internal traffic of your business. Luckily GA makes excluding this traffic a snap.
Return to Add Filter Page to add the exclude internal traffic filter.
Enter Filter Name: Block Internal IP Addresses
Filter Type: Select Exclude All Traffic From An IP Address from the drop down menu
IP Address: Enter Your IP Address or An IP Address Range Here
Note: Remember to include regular expressions
For example, if the IP address you are filtering is: 192.168.1.1
Then the IP address value is: 192\.168\.1\.1
Note: Google offers a free tool that will generate the regular expression you need if you are applying the exclusion filter to a url range.
Remember to select the profile you want to apply the filter to and press Save Changes. Now your profile will no longer log data collected from the IP addresses you excluded.
3. Force URI Case To Lower
Add this filter to make sure that you don’t have the same page appear twice in your data because in one instance the URL is upper case and in another it is lower case.
Return to Add Filter Page to create the force URI case to lower filter.
Enter Filter Name: Force URI Case To Lower
Filter Type: Select Custom Filter from the drop down menu
Choose Custom Type: Select Lowercase from the radio buttons
Filter Field: Select Request URI
Select the profile or profiles you want to apply this filter to and Save Changes. Now you can be sure not to have duplicated pages in your Content Reports.
4. Display Full Referral Names
Add this filter to display the full name of the referral site where traffic came from.
Return to Add Filter Page to create the display full referral names filter.
Enter Filter Name: Display Full Referral Names
Filter Type: Select Custom Filter from the drop down menu
Choose Custom Type: Select Advanced from the radio buttons
Field A -> Extract A: Select Referral from the drop down menu and enter (.*) in the text field to tell Google Analytics to select the entire URL
Field B -> Extract B: Leave drop down and text field empty
Output To -> Constructor: Select User Defined from the drop down menu and enter $A1 in the text field
Field A Required: Select the Yes radio button
Field B Required: Select the No radio button
Override Output Field: Select the Yes radio button
Case Sensitive: Select the No radio button
Select the profile or profiles you want to apply this filter to and Save Changes. You will now be able to see the complete referral URL in Traffic Sources > Referring Sites Report.
5. Remove URL Root
Add this filter to remove the http://yourwebsite.com portion of URLs from the Content Report. For example http://yourwebsite.com/mywebpage/myinterests/index.html would now be reported in analytics as /mywebpage/myinterests/index.html which will allow you to see more URL information on what pages your visitors went visited.
Return to Add Filter Page to build the remove URL root filter.
Enter Filter Name: Remove URL Root
Filter Type: Select Custom Filter from the drop down menu
Choose Custom Type: Select Advanced from the radio buttons
Filter Field: Select Request URI
Search String: Enter yourdomainname\.com/
Replace String: Enter /
Case Sensitive: Select the No radio button
Select the profile or profiles you want to apply this filter to and Save Changes. You will now be able to see the more complete details of were visitors went to on your website.
You can also adjust this filter to dig deeper into your directory, but you will then be no longer receive data from your other directories. If you wish to filter down into into another directory. I suggest you create an additional profile containing the same parameters as the account you wanted to apply this filter to. Otherwise you will risk losing data that cannot be recovered in Google Analytics.
Note: You can also use a similar filter to remove the file extensions (.php, .html, etc…)
One Last Note: Applying Filters directly effects the data Google Analytics will collect. You have to be careful and make sure to review your traffic before and after applying filters to make sure they are performing properly. All filters applied will only affect future data. Historical data cannot be retroactively filtered or recreated in Google Analytics.
Tags: Analytics, Filters, google
