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What is a referral exclusion in Google Analytics?
A referral exclusion list is the list of domains whose incoming traffic is treated as direct traffic (instead of referral traffic) by Google Analytics. Direct traffic is a Google Analytics session (or visit) which starts without a referrer being passed by a user’s web browser.
How do I exclude a website from Google Analytics?
- Go to Reports > Event Tracking > Analytics Exclusion URLs.
- Enter a URL (or part of a URL) into the URL Or Pattern text box.
- Set the Type of match to test.
- Click Add.
How do I filter out referral spam in Google Analytics?
Navigate to your new testing view, click on Filters, then Add Filter to create a new one. Give your new filter a descriptive name like Referral Spam for easy identification later on. Change your Filter Type to Custom, and change the Exclude Filter Field to Campaign Source (not the Referral field).
What is referral path in Google Analytics?
In Google Analytics, when you view your Referrals under Traffic Sources, you see the main domains that traffic to your website originated from. When you click on any of these source domains, you see the specific pages where people found your links and clicked on them. These are the referral paths.
How do I block spam referrals?
The most effective way to block your spam referral traffic is through a . htaccess (hypertext access) file. This configuration file is used to control your server. It can be instructed to block spammy visits by domain or IP address.
How do I exclude bot traffic from Google Analytics?
Go to the View Settings section under the Admin section in your Google Analytics view, and check the ‘Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders’ box. You will then start filtering out bot and spider traffic which will make reporting on human visits and activity much clearer.
How to check referral exclusions in Google Analytics?
Click Delete domain to save. The best way to validate that the referral exclusion list is set up correctly is to use Google Tag Assistant Recordings. When you make a session that crosses domains, it can tell you instantly whether an extra session was created. View an example report that shows how Tag Assistant Recordings highlights the problem.
What happens when a domain is excluded from analytics?
When your domain is in the exclusion list, then users can cross from one subdomain on your site to another without starting a new session. Without your domain in the exclusion list, when a user goes from one subdomain to another on your site, Analytics sees that as a referral from one hostname to another and starts a new session.
Can a website be excluded from the referral exclusions list?
As a result, you shouldn’t see self-referrals if you have a web property that tracks multiple subdomains. Only traffic from the domain entered in the referral exclusions list and any subdomains is excluded.
How to filter domain referrals in Google Analytics?
Set the Filter Type to Custom. Click the Select filter type drop-down menu and select Exclude. Set the Filter field to Campaign Source. Enter a Filter Pattern containing the domain of the referring source which you would like to exclude. For example, some-spam-site.com.