excluding internal traffic from google analytics

Question

At work we have a dynamic IP address so excluding internal traffic by IP doesn't work for us, we have to set a cookie in the users browser which tell Google Analytics to exclude any traffic from users with this cookie installed.

The cookie we use is:

<body onLoad="javascript:_gaq.push(['_setVar','me_exclude']);">

This cookie is on a page /ex that not linked to, so the only people who would visit it would be people who knew to exclude themselves from the Google Analytics.

What I was wandering is do you need to also include the tracking code on this page for the exclude cookie to work, or is the line above all that's needed?

Better to deploy the google opt out plugin in your company: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout — Eike Pierstorff
thanks for that, ive been looking for one of those for ages but only able to find chrome plugins, and were all of firefox. cheers — sam
You can also do this by IP: support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034840?hl=en — TomFuertes

Kristjan Kure Kristjan Kure · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-07T19:27:00

I almost gave up searching for answer, but then found this: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/advanced#optout

1) Make yourself a dummy page on your site. For example: www.yourdomain.com/exclude-traffic.html

2) Add in <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> in head, so the page wont be indexed.

3) Add script above your tracking code inside the head tag. Make sure you update UA-XXXXXXXX-Y values. You can check your GA code in Admin -> Tracking info -> Tracking code

4) Add link inside body tag.

5) Open the page and click on the link.

Final result:

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html lang="en">
    <head>
        <title>Remove My Internal Traffic from Google Analytics</title>
        <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
        <script>
            // Set to the same value as the web property used on the site
            var gaProperty = 'UA-XXXXXXXX-Y';

            // Disable tracking if the opt-out cookie exists.
            var disableStr = 'ga-disable-' + gaProperty;
            if (document.cookie.indexOf(disableStr + '=true') > -1) {
                window[disableStr] = true;
            }

            // Opt-out function
            function gaOptout() {
                document.cookie = disableStr + '=true; expires=Thu, 31 Dec 2099 23:59:59 UTC; path=/';
                window[disableStr] = true;
            }
        </script>
        <script>
            (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
                (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
                    m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
            })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

            ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-Y', 'domainname.com'); //now its changed to auto
            ga('send', 'pageview');
        </script>
    </head>
    <body>

    <h1>Remove My Internal Traffic from Google Analytics</h1>
    <p><a href="javascript:gaOptout()">Click here to opt-out of Google Analytics</a></p>

    </body>
    </html>

excluding internal traffic from google analytics

1 Answers