How To Test Google Analytics On Localhost

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Google Analytics is a useful tool for tracking and comprehending your customer’s actions, including user experience, online content, device functionality, and more. However, configuring and testing Google Analytics can be challenging, especially when working on the localhost. This guide will assist you in testing Google Analytics on your localhost.

Step 1: Setting Up Google Analytics Account

First and foremost, you need to have a Google Analytics account. If you don’t have one, visit the Google Analytics website and create one.

Step 2: Creating A Property And Getting The Tracking ID

After creating your account, you need to set up a Property in Google Analytics for your website. A property represents your website or app and is the collection point in Analytics for the data from your site or app. After setting up a Property, you will be provided with a Tracking ID. This ID is used to connect your website with your Google Analytics account.

Step 3: Adding Google Analytics Tracking Code To Your Website

Next, you need to add the Google Analytics Tracking code to your website. This code snippet needs to be added to every page you want to track.

<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','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>

Replace the ‘UA-XXXXXXXX-X’ in the above code with your Tracking ID.

Step 4: Testing Google Analytics On Localhost

To test Google Analytics on localhost, you’ll need to send events from your localhost to Google Analytics. The problem is that by default, Google Analytics filters out traffic from hostnames that do not contain a period, including “localhost”.

To bypass this, you need to add a filter to your Google Analytics view. Here are the steps:

  1. Go to the Admin section of your Google Analytics account.
  2. Select the appropriate account and property.
  3. Under the View column, click Filters.
  4. Click + Add Filter.
  5. Choose a name for the filter, and select Custom for Filter Type.
  6. Choose Include for the Filter Field, and enter “.*localhost.*” (without quotes) as the Filter Pattern.
  7. Click Save.

You have now successfully set up Google Analytics to include data from your localhost!

To verify that Google Analytics is receiving data from your localhost, you can use the Realtime feature in Google Analytics. This will show you real-time data about your web traffic, including traffic from your localhost.

Conclusion

Testing Google Analytics on localhost might seem a bit complex, but with this guide, you should be able to set it up without any problem. Happy analyzing!