Filtering & Exceptions Settings
The “Filtering & Exceptions” settings allow you to control the data collected, ensuring accuracy and relevance. Here, we explain each option within this section and provide examples where applicable.
User Role Exclusions
This setting allows you to exclude data collection for users based on their role within your WordPress site. By default, WordPress has several user roles such as Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber, Customer, and Shop manager. Each role has different capabilities, and users with these roles may frequently access your site as part of their duties. Excluding these roles can prevent internal actions from skewing your website’s statistical data.
Use Case: If you choose to exclude the Administrator role, any user logged in with Administrator privileges will not be tracked. This is particularly useful to ensure that the website’s maintenance activities are not counted as part of the traffic statistics, providing a clearer view of actual visitor behavior.
IP Exclusions
Excluded IP Address List
Specify individual IP addresses or ranges that should be excluded from data collection to prevent skewing statistics with known traffic, such as your company’s internal network.
Example: To exclude your company’s IP range, input 192.168.1.1/24, which will cover all IP addresses from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255.
Robot Exclusions
Robot List
Enter the names of web crawlers and bots you wish to exclude from your statistics. This helps in filtering out non-human traffic.
Example: To exclude a known crawler like Googlebot, you would add its name to this list.
Robot Visit Threshold
Set a daily visit limit to identify excessive bot traffic. Visits from a single bot exceeding this threshold will be flagged.
Example: If you set the threshold to 50, any bot surpassing 50 visits in one day will be marked and excluded from future tracking.
Force Robot List Update After Upgrades
Automatically update the robot exclusion list after the plugin is upgraded to ensure the latest bots are recognized and excluded.
Activate Honey Pot Protection
Activate a hidden trap on your site to detect and exclude bots, further refining your visitor statistics.
Identify Incomplete Browser Data as Bot Activity
Treat visitors with incomplete or suspicious browser data as bots, excluding them from data collection.
Example: A visit without a user agent string, for instance, will be excluded under the assumption it’s a bot.
GeoIP Exclusions
Excluded Countries
List country codes to exclude from statistics, focusing on relevant geographic data for your site.
Example: To exclude all traffic from Italy, you would enter the country code IT.
Included Countries
Conversely, you can specify country codes to include, limiting your statistics to particular regions.
Example: If your business targets the United States and Canada, enter US, CA to include only these countries in your analytics.
URL Exclusions
Excluded Login Page
Opt to exclude the login page from being counted in your statistics, as this is usually not indicative of user engagement.
Use Case: Enable this to prevent wp-login.php page hits from inflating visitor statistics.
Excluded RSS Feeds
Prevent RSS feed hits from being counted to focus on direct web traffic.
Use Case: Check this if you want to exclude data from RSS feed aggregators and focus solely on actual page views.
Excluded 404 Pages
Exclude tracking for ‘404 Not Found’ errors to concentrate on existing content.
Use Case: Enable this to ensure that analytics reflect engagement with live pages, not missing content.
Excluded URLs
Specify particular URLs that you want to exclude from tracking to maintain focused and relevant statistics.
Use Case: If there’s a specific URL that’s used for testing or development purposes, such as yourdomain.com/test-page, list it here to exclude it from data collection.
Managing URL Query Parameters (Version 14.5 and above)
In the pursuit of precise analytics, URL query parameters play a crucial role. They are the section of a URL that follows a question mark (?), containing data that does not fit conveniently into the hierarchical path structure. These parameters can be pivotal in tracking the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and understanding user behavior on your site.
Allowed Query Parameters
By default, the system is configured to retain certain URL query parameters that are commonly used for tracking and analytics purposes. The following is the list of allowed query parameters that our system will recognize and process:
refsourceutm_idutm_sourceutm_mediumutm_campaignutm_contentutm_termsp
Customization
You have the flexibility to control which URL query parameters are retained in your statistics. The system’s default parameters are selected based on standard industry practices. However, your marketing or tracking needs may require additional parameters or exclude some that are not relevant to your situation.
To customize this list, you can add or remove parameters according to your specific tracking needs. Simply enter the parameter you wish to include or exclude in the configuration line.
For a detailed explanation of each default parameter, and guidance on customizing this list, please refer to our comprehensive documentation here.
Use Case
Imagine you are running a marketing campaign through various channels, such as email (marked with utm_medium=email), and you want to track the campaign’s performance (utm_campaign=spring_sale). You might also be interested in which content variations are most effective (utm_content=version_a). By ensuring these parameters are included in your allowed list, you will be able to filter and analyze your traffic data accordingly.
Example: A user clicks on your campaign link in an email, which takes them to your site with the following URL: https://www.yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale&utm_content=version_a. With the URL parameters correctly set up in your filtering settings, your analytics will neatly categorize this visit as coming from your ‘spring_sale’ email campaign, specifically from the ‘version_a’ of your content.
Reset to Default
If at any point you need to revert to the standard configuration, you can easily do so by clicking the “Reset to Default” button. This will restore the list of allowed query parameters to the original settings defined by the system.
Host Exclusions
Excluded Hosts
Provide hostnames to be excluded from data collection, typically to omit traffic from known sources.
Use Case: If you want to exclude a specific subdomain like dev.yourdomain.com, add it to this list.
General Exclusions
Enable Record Exclusions
This feature allows you to keep a comprehensive log of all traffic and user actions that have been excluded from your statistics. When this setting is enabled, any hit that is filtered out based on your specified criteria—such as excluded user roles, IP addresses, bots, and URLs—will be documented. This creates a transparent record that can be invaluable for auditing and understanding the nature of excluded traffic. It also assists in verifying the effectiveness of your exclusion filters and in making informed adjustments to your analytics settings.
Use Case: After enabling this option, if a user with an administrator role visits several pages on your site, these visits will not appear in your analytics dashboard but will be logged separately. This allows you to cross-reference excluded visits to ensure the exclusion rules are functioning as intended. If at any time you wish to analyze the excluded data for trends or potential changes to your filter settings, this log will be available for review.
Important Notes:
- Impact of Exclusions: It’s essential to understand that excluding certain roles, IPs, or user agents will impact the data you see in your analytics. Use these settings judiciously to avoid excluding relevant data.
- Regular Reviews: Periodically review these settings to ensure they align with your current needs, especially if there are changes in your team or website functionality.
