Stop Google Analytics from Tracking Your Own Visits
Are you looking for a reliable and effective way to stop Google Analytics from tracking your own visits? I will share with you a surprisingly simple method that works 100% of the time.
Accurate tracking data = happy webmaster!
The Problem I Had
Whenever I work on a client’s website, Google Analytics continues tracking my own visits. That becomes a real issue when I work on it extensively because my contribution to the tracking data is significant. As a developer, webmaster, or website owner you somehow have to work around this issue and block Google Analytics in order to make sure that your visits are not recorded.
In The Past
In the past I was using a technique whereby I would set a custom filter with an exception that stopped recording my visits from one specific browser on a computer. Recently, I found out that this technique does not work as well as I thought, so I started looking for alternatives.
My Preferred Solution
The best solution currently available is a Chrome extension which helps stop Google Analytics from tracking your own visits. Specifically, you enter the domains you don’t want your visits to be tracked and the extension does everything else on its own.
How to install
- Visit the extension’s page
- Install it on Chrome
- Navigate on your Chrome browser to: Settings -> Extensions (or type “chrome://settings/extensions” in the address line)
- Find “Block Yourself from Analytics” and click Options
- Add the websites you wish to block from tracking
- Hit Save and you are all set!
The extention I tried is called “Block Yourself from Analytics” and works as advertised. The only “downside” is that you need to be using Chrome for it to be effective.
Anything for Firefox?
I did some research on Firefox but unfortunately wasn’t able to find something similar that works. I looked at Google Disconnect which stops tracking requests from Google, but after I did some testing with the “real time tracking tool” in Google Analytics, it doesn’t seem to be working.
