SEO

How To Exclude Internal Traffic In Google Analytics 4

Published

12 months ago

May 12, 2023

How To Exclude Internal Traffic In Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is rolling out in a rush, and if you’re reading this guide, you might be having a tough time figuring out how it works.

One area that might be causing you confusion is filtering out internal traffic.

If you’re like me, you’re already missing how user-friendly Universal Analytics (UA) was – especially when it came to filtering out traffic.

In UA, you had full control over how you could filter out traffic.

See the beauty it had.

Screenshot from Google UA, May 2023

Now, I find it hard to understand why GA4 has replaced such a vital function with only an IP-based rule.

The IP-based filter is useless when your company employees are remote as, in most cases, IPs are dynamic, and it is not practical to update the list of IPs daily.

This is why we have created this guide for you to help you filter out undesired traffic – and, most importantly, internal traffic – in GA4.

What Is Internal Traffic?

“Internal traffic” refers to the web traffic that originates from you and your employees accessing your website.

Your employees’ activity can reduce the quality of your data and make it harder for you to understand what real visitors are doing on the website, and how much traffic you have.

Even though IP-based filters may not be the best way to filter our internal traffic, I would like to start with that method as the easiest path to use – and as a basis to explain how new data filters work.

How To Filter Out Traffic Based On IP

Navigate to Data Streams in GA4.

Screenshot from GA4, May 2023

Go to Configure tag settings, click on the Show all button, and then click on Define Internal Traffic Rule.

Configure tag settings GA4 — Configure tag settings

Define internal traffic GA4 — Define internal traffic

On the popup dialog, click the Create button, and you will see a screen where you can enter the IP addresses you want to exclude.

Please note the “traffic_type=internal” parameter in the dialog.

When you create a rule, whenever it applies, it does append to the Google Analytics hits the parameter “tt=internal” which is saved in the GA4 database.

IP based filter

Add data filters by navigating to Data Settings then Data Filters, and clicking Create Filter button.

The basic idea is straightforward: You need to assign a value of your choice to the “traffic_type” parameter and then use data filters to remove any hits that have that same value assigned to the “traffic_type” parameter.

There are two options: The “Developer” filter and the “Internal Traffic” filter.

What Is The Internal Traffic Data Filter?

This filters out any traffic with the traffic_type parameter set to “internal” by default. The value of the parameter and filter name can be anything.

How Does The Internal Traffic Data Filter Work?

For example, you can create an IP filter rule with a parameter traffic_type=europe_headquarters and set a different IP range for your EU office.

You can create as many rules as you want with different traffic_type parameter values, and it will be sent in the hit payload (as tt a parameter) when the visitor IP matches the rule.

tt parameter in the hit payload

Then, by adding a data filter for each IP rule you’ve created, GA4 will exclude hits when traffic_type the data filter setting value matches the tt parameter of the payload –(tt is simply an abbreviation of “traffic type”).

What Is The Developer Traffic Data Filter?

This filter excludes traffic from developers or internal traffic from a company or organization.

Similarly to the internal traffic data filter, it eliminates only data from being recorded in GA’s database, with the difference that you can still see your activity in the Debug View and its real-time reports.

That is why it is called a developer data filter.

In contrast, you can’t see events from internal traffic in Debug View when internal data filters are active.

How Does The Developer Data Filter Work?

When debug mode is enabled _dbg payload parameter is included in hits.

Then, the developer data filter eliminates all hits with _dbg the parameter being recorded in the GA4 database.

Debug mode parameter is added when using the preview mode of Google Tag Manager, or when Google Analytics Debugger is used.

_dbg debug view parameter in the payload

Data Filter States

Data filters have three different states:

Testing.
Active.
Inactive.

Active and inactive states are self-explanatory, but you might be wondering what the testing state is.

In the testing mode, you can apply a filter in GA’s reports using the automatically added custom dimension “Test data filter name” equal to your data filter name.

Testing mode is a great feature that allows you to test if your filters work properly before activating them because applying a data filter permanently impacts your data.

It means the data you exclude will not be processed and won’t be accessible in Analytics.

We’ve learned how data filters work by using built-in IP filter rules.

But as I mentioned, this will not work with remote teams – and in that case, it’s better to use a cookie-based approach where you send your team a URL they can open, and their successive visits will be excluded based on the cookies.

How To Exclude Traffic In GA4 By Using Cookies

I want to be honest at the outset: Setting this up requires many steps.

You need to remember the principle.

We need to send the hits with the traffic_type parameter that we’ve set in data filters when creating them.

This means we will set a cookie on employees’ browsers and check every visit. Whenever that cookie is set, we will set the traffic_type parameter to “internal.”

Let’s say we are going to use the exclude_user query parameter.

When employees visit the URL “https://example.com/?exclude_user=1” with the query parameter “exclude_user” set to “1”, a sample cookie exclude_user will be set up.

You can send that URL to your employees to use once to open the website and set up cookies.

Please note: Keeping the names of variables the same is important for the codes below to function, and since client-side set cookies expire in seven days in Safari, your employees may need to open that URL once a week – or you can set cookies when they are logged in to your website server side.

To set up a cookie when one opens the URL https://example.com/?exclude_user=1, we need to add a “custom HTML” tag in GTM with the following script and choose the firing trigger “Pageviews All Pages.”

(Hint: You can use ChatGPT for coding.)

<script>
 var urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
//check if exclude_user query parameter exists and set cookie
 if (urlParams.has("exclude_user")) {
   if (urlParams.get("exclude_user") === "1") {
      set_cookie('exclude_user');
   } else {
      delete_cookie('exclude_user');
  }
}

 function set_cookie(cookie_name) {
   var date = new Date();
   date.setTime(date.getTime() + (2 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
   var expires = "expires=" + date.toUTCString();
   document.cookie = cookie_name + "=1; " + expires + "; path=/";
 }

 function delete_cookie(cookie_name) {
   document.cookie = cookie_name + "=; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 UTC; path=/;";
 }
</script>

Custom HTML tag in GTM Add the “1st Party Cookie” type of variable with the name “Internal Cookie” and set the cookie name setting as exclude_user.

1st Party Cookie Variable It will return the value of the exclude_user cookie if it is set, or a special value undefined (not the same as the string “undefined”) if the cookie doesn’t exist.

Add a built-in “Debug Mode” variable named “Debug Mode.”

Debug mode variable

Create a JavaScript type of variable named “Internal Traffic,” copy and paste the code below into it, and save.

This JavaScript variable will return values “internal” or “developer_view” (could be anything different than “internal”) to be set up for traffic_type parameter.

function getTrackingType() {
 var developer_mode = {{Debug Mode}};
 var urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
 var excludeUserParam = urlParams.get('exclude_user');
 //if exclude_user query parameter exists, override the return value.
 if( excludeUserParam !== null ){
   var filter_type_overrdie = (excludeUserParam === null || excludeUserParam === '1');
   //if exclude_user paramter is set don't check cookies
   if( filter_type_overrdie ){
     return 'internal';
   }else{
     return 'developer_view';
    }
 }
 var internalCookie = {{Internal Cookie}};
 if ( internalCookie === "1" ) {
    return 'internal';
 }
 if (developer_mode) {
    return 'developer_view';
 }
 return undefined;
}

GTM JavaScript variable where we set traffic_type parameter value

It will have a different value than the internal, thus our data filter will not be filtering out our developer views, and we can debug our setup while still having an exclude_user cookie setup.

The purpose of this setup is to exclude developers from website visits when they are not testing while still allowing them to perform debugging when necessary because you need to be able to debug the setup occasionally.

Set the traffic_type parameter to populate from the newly created {{Internal Traffic}} variable in your GA4 configuration tag.

How to setup traffic_type parameter

Preview it in Google Tag Manager (GTM) by opening any URL of your website with the “?exclude_user=1” query string attached, and check that the “traffic_type” parameter is filled in and that the “tt” hit payload parameter is set to “internal.”

You can switch between “internal” and “developer_view” values just by changing the exclude_user query parameter value from 1 to 2.

Once you are sure that the filters work properly and don’t filter out real users’ traffic by mistake, you can activate them from the data filters page, and you are done.

How to activate data filter in GA4 In case you have a gtag.js implementation, you need to add a traffic_type parameter equal to “internal” to your tag configuration, as shown below.

gtag('set', { 'traffic_type': 'internal' });

For enabling debug mode, I would suggest using the Chrome extension.

But I highly recommend using a GTM setup because it is easier to scale, and on big projects, maintenance will be more cost-effective.

If you like coding, at least you can go hybrid by using GTM and pushing data parameters into the data layer on your website’s custom JavaScript.

Conclusion

I know what you are thinking after reading this guide.

The path to simplicity is overcomplicated – and where it once took seconds, you now must spend days setting up your filters properly.

You may not even have the technical knowledge required to implement the steps described in this guide.

However, here is where I would suggest using ChatGPT to get extra help.

If you need a different filter that requires additional custom coding, you can ask ChatGPT to code for you.

For example, you can ask it to create a JavaScript variable for GTM that returns “internal” when one visits your website from spammy referrals and excludes spam traffic.

The principle is simple: You should set a traffic_type=”some_value” parameter to whatever value you want and exclude any hits which have traffic_type parameter set to that value by using data filters.

I hope in the future, the Google Analytics team will add more granular and user friendly control over how you can filter your traffic, similar to Universal Analytics.

More resources:

Featured Image: Rajat Chamria/Shutterstock

Related Topics:analytics Exclude Google Internal seo Traffic

Up Next

The Value of Smaller SEO Events & Masterminds [Podcast]

Don't Miss

An SEO Walkthrough For New Users

SEO

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

Published

18 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Max

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.

However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.

To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Writing Prompts For ChatGPT

What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?

A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.

The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.

Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.

ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.

How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT

Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”

ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.

Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.

If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.

For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”

Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.

However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.

Must-Have GPTs Assistant

I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.

This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.

It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)

Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024

For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.

With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.

Master Reverse Prompt Engineering

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.

By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.

One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.

This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.

Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.

Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts

First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.

Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.

Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”

Reverse Prompt engineering via WebChatGPT

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”

Reverse prompt engineering: Amazon product

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”

Reverse prompt engineering an SEJ blog post

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.

Go Deeper

Prompts and examples for SEO:

Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”

Important Considerations:

Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.

Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.

Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques

Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.

Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.

Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.

This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.

More resources:

Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock

SEO

Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey

Published

2 days ago

April 23, 2024

Max

Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey

Understanding the impact of your content at every touchpoint of the customer journey is essential – but that’s easier said than done. From attracting potential leads to nurturing them into loyal customers, there are many touchpoints to look into.

So how do you identify and take advantage of these opportunities for growth?

Watch this on-demand webinar and learn a comprehensive approach for measuring the value of your content initiatives, so you can optimize resource allocation for maximum impact.

You’ll learn:

Fresh methods for measuring your content’s impact.
Fascinating insights using first-touch attribution, and how it differs from the usual last-touch perspective.
Ways to persuade decision-makers to invest in more content by showcasing its value convincingly.

With Bill Franklin and Oliver Tani of DAC Group, we unravel the nuances of attribution modeling, emphasizing the significance of layering first-touch and last-touch attribution within your measurement strategy.

Check out these insights to help you craft compelling content tailored to each stage, using an approach rooted in first-hand experience to ensure your content resonates.

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to content measurement, this webinar promises valuable insights and actionable tactics to elevate your SEO game and optimize your content initiatives for success.

View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.

SEO

How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords

Published

2 days ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Competitor keywords are the keywords your rivals rank for in Google’s search results. They may rank organically or pay for Google Ads to rank in the paid results.

Knowing your competitors’ keywords is the easiest form of keyword research. If your competitors rank for or target particular keywords, it might be worth it for you to target them, too.

There is no way to see your competitors’ keywords without a tool like Ahrefs, which has a database of keywords and the sites that rank for them. As far as we know, Ahrefs has the biggest database of these keywords.

How to find all the keywords your competitor ranks for

Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
Enter your competitor’s domain
Go to the Organic keywords report

The report is sorted by traffic to show you the keywords sending your competitor the most visits. For example, Mailchimp gets most of its organic traffic from the keyword “mailchimp.”

Since you’re unlikely to rank for your competitor’s brand, you might want to exclude branded keywords from the report. You can do this by adding a Keyword > Doesn’t contain filter. In this example, we’ll filter out keywords containing “mailchimp” or any potential misspellings:

Filtering out branded keywords in Organic keywords report

If you’re a new brand competing with one that’s established, you might also want to look for popular low-difficulty keywords. You can do this by setting the Volume filter to a minimum of 500 and the KD filter to a maximum of 10.

Finding popular, low-difficulty keywords in Organic keywords

How to find keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t

Go to Competitive Analysis
Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
Enter your competitor’s domain in the But these competitors do section

Hit “Show keyword opportunities,” and you’ll see all the keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t.

You can also add a Volume and KD filter to find popular, low-difficulty keywords in this report.

How to find keywords multiple competitors rank for, but you don’t

Go to Competitive Analysis
Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
Enter the domains of multiple competitors in the But these competitors do section

Competitive analysis report with multiple competitors

You’ll see all the keywords that at least one of these competitors ranks for, but you don’t.

Content gap report with multiple competitors

You can also narrow the list down to keywords that all competitors rank for. Click on the Competitors’ positions filter and choose All 3 competitors:

Selecting all 3 competitors to see keywords all 3 competitors rank for

Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
Enter your competitor’s domain
Go to the Paid keywords report

This report shows you the keywords your competitors are targeting via Google Ads.

Since your competitor is paying for traffic from these keywords, it may indicate that they’re profitable for them—and could be for you, too.

You know what keywords your competitors are ranking for or bidding on. But what do you do with them? There are basically three options.

1. Create pages to target these keywords

You can only rank for keywords if you have content about them. So, the most straightforward thing you can do for competitors’ keywords you want to rank for is to create pages to target them.

However, before you do this, it’s worth clustering your competitor’s keywords by Parent Topic. This will group keywords that mean the same or similar things so you can target them all with one page.

Here’s how to do that:

Export your competitor’s keywords, either from the Organic Keywords or Content Gap report

Paste them into Keywords Explorer
Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab

For example, MailChimp ranks for keywords like “what is digital marketing” and “digital marketing definition.” These and many others get clustered under the Parent Topic of “digital marketing” because people searching for them are all looking for the same thing: a definition of digital marketing. You only need to create one page to potentially rank for all these keywords.

Keywords under the cluster of "digital marketing"

2. Optimize existing content by filling subtopics

You don’t always need to create new content to rank for competitors’ keywords. Sometimes, you can optimize the content you already have to rank for them.

How do you know which keywords you can do this for? Try this:

Export your competitor’s keywords

Paste them into Keywords Explorer
Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
Look for Parent Topics you already have content about

For example, if we analyze our competitor, we can see that seven keywords they rank for fall under the Parent Topic of “press release template.”

Our competitor ranks for seven keywords that fall under the "press release template" cluster

If we search our site, we see that we already have a page about this topic.

Site search finds that we already have a blog post on press release templates

If we click the caret and check the keywords in the cluster, we see keywords like “press release example” and “press release format.”

Keywords under the cluster of "press release template"

To rank for the keywords in the cluster, we can probably optimize the page we already have by adding sections about the subtopics of “press release examples” and “press release format.”