How To Exclude Bots From Google Analytics

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Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking website traffic and user behavior. However, it can be difficult to get accurate data when bots are crawling your site. In this article, we will discuss how to exclude bots from Google Analytics so that you can get more accurate data.

Why Exclude Bots?

Bots are automated programs that crawl websites for various reasons. Some bots are helpful, such as search engine crawlers that index your site for better search results. However, other bots can be malicious and cause harm to your website or steal sensitive information.

When bots crawl your site, they can skew your Google Analytics data by inflating your pageviews and sessions. This can make it difficult to determine which traffic sources are actually driving conversions and revenue for your business.

How to Exclude Bots

There are several ways to exclude bots from Google Analytics, but the most effective method is to use a combination of filters and settings. Here are the steps you can follow:

  1. Create a new view in Google Analytics that will be used for excluding bots.
  2. Go to the “Admin” section of Google Analytics and select the account, property, and view you want to edit.
  3. Click on “Filters” and then “New Filter.”
  4. Select “Exclude” as the filter type and enter a name for the filter.
  5. In the “Filter Pattern” field, enter the IP addresses or hostnames of the bots you want to exclude. You can also use regular expressions to match multiple patterns.
  6. Save the filter and apply it to your new view.

Another way to exclude bots is to use Google Analytics’ built-in bot filtering feature. To do this, go to the “Admin” section of Google Analytics and select the account, property, and view you want to edit.

Click on “View Settings” and then “Bot Filtering.” Check the box next to “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders” and save your changes. This will exclude all known bots and spiders from your Google Analytics data.

Conclusion

Excluding bots from Google Analytics is an important step in getting accurate data about your website traffic. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can ensure that your data is free from bot-related skews and get a better understanding of how users are interacting with your site.