STUDENTS
arnold on Oct 28, 2018
One of the first steps when you set up an analytics account is to set up filters so that we can only collect the information that is relevant to us. Datasets always need to be cleaned and filters are a way to help get the data cleaned before even viewing the data.
For example, if a company’s web and marketing team is constantly on the website making improvements, it could have an impact on a lot of different statistics that are important to that company. For example, bounce rates, time on site, user flows, etc.
So, one filter that most company’s use is a filter that prevent Google Analytics from recording data from any web traffic from that company. This is done by screening out any traffic from any IP address at that company.
We will go ahead and set this filter up. But, before we do this, we need to save our original data in case we make a mistake. So, you will always, in good practice save your raw data view.
Setting up RAW Data, Test View and Master View.
You should create a master view with all your working filters and any new filters should be set up in a test account, verified to be working, and then copied to a master view.
Go to Admin:
Then View Settings.
Enter “Raw Data”
Then… Click SAVE
Next Click on “Create View”
Then enter test view:
Click Save.
We will now change the setting in the test view to block out internal traffic.
Click on View settings again from the test view.
Scroll down and click the button for “Exclude all hits..” as shown below. This will help to filter out all spam bot and spam spiders.
Then click SAVE.
Next scroll up and click “Copy View” of the test view.
Change the name to Master view and click Copy view.
You will now have three views: Raw data may say “All Website Data”
Select TEST VIEW next.
Then click on FILTERS
Then Click ADD FILTER
Then fill out the information as shown in the image below.
To find your IP address click here:
Once all the information is entered click SAVE. Now let’s copy this to the Master view.
Go to Admin. Then select the MASTER VIEW.
Then select FILTERS
Then select ADD FILTER
Enter the following information:
You will now see your first filter on your master data.
This prevents traffic from your computer registering as traffic in the analytics.
Just for fun, if you are interested here are some other filters you could consider setting up.
https://digital.klood.com/blog/top-9-filters-need-apply-google-analytics
And to to see an interactive Demo of this you can watch:
https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/6/unit/1/lesson/4
