Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Totally Remove "localhost" entries from Google Analytics
-
Hello All,
In Google Analytics I see a bunch of traffic coming from "localhost:4444 / referral".
I had tried once before to create a filter to exclude this traffic source, but obviously I did it wrong since it's still showing up.
Here is the filter I have currently:
Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Filter Type: Custom filter > Exclude
Filter Field: Referral
Filter Pattern: .localhost:4444.
Case Sensitive: NoCan anyone see what I'm doing wrong and give me a push in the right direction?
Thanks in advance!
-
The filter I used a long time ago that worked at the time was a hostname one using (.?localhost.?)
Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Filter Type: Custom filter > Hostname
Filter Pattern: (.?localhost.?)
Case Sensitive: NoNow I block via code so I'm not sure if this still works - feel free to try. Also, I'm not sure why the filter uses both * and ? since the star should be inclusive of ? wildcard but I can no longer find the source.
Good luck
-
Hi Robert,
did you resolve this problem as I have exactly the same thing showing on my analytics too and it is driving me mad?
-
Does anyone have any ideas?
I'm still totally stumped!
-
Does anyone have any ideas?
Having this silly "localhost:4444" entry is skewing all of my numbers and no matter what I try, it won't seem to filter it out.
Any help is very much appreciated!
Thanks!
-
Thanks Mike.
At least I know I'm not alone in being totally & completely baffled!
Hopefully someone else can give me a push in the right direction.
Cheers!
-
I'm sort of baffled, myself. I see no reason why this would be unfilterable. I'm marking this as an unanswered question, hopefully someone comes to our rescue here.
-
Putting the filter pattern of "localhost" did not work... sadly.
I still see "localhost:4444 / referral" in my reports.
There must be a way to filter this out.... I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem (or at least I hope not!)
Any other ideas?
Thanks in advance.
-
There was no real reason I wasn't just trying localhost.
I just thought we needed some other parameters on there... but clearly those weren't working.
I just updated the filter now and I'll check tomorrow's data to see if the answer was really this simple.
Thanks!
-
Was there any reason you're not trying just
localhost
as the filter pattern? No asterisks, quotes, backslashes or anything?
-
Unfortunately that did not work.
I still see this in my referral reports:
localhost:4444 / referral
Just to confirm, the filter I set is:
Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Filter Type: Custom Filter > Exclude
Filter Field: Referral
Filter Pattern: localhost*
Case Sensitive: NoAny other ideas? I'll try anything.
-
Do you have a update on this? Did it work?
-
If I put localhost then I get a "Regular expression is invalid" error.
I'll put: localhost*
I'll watch it for a couple days and see what happens.
Thanks!
-
1: the "." in front of "*localhost" might break the filter i guess. The same goes for the "." after "4444".
2: Have you tried localhost* or localhost ?
-
Thanks for the link... this is kind of what I had followed earlier, but it still doesn't work.
In my original question you can see the current filter I have setup.
Yet, for some reason this is not blocking what I need since I still see "localhost:4444 / referral" in my reports.
Any other ideas?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there a way to filter all computers on a specific IPv6 network in Google Analytics?
Is there a quick way of filtering the IP addresses for all the computers on a network that's using IPv6? I want to filter out visits to our websites from the devices on our office network, but each computer (and phone and tablet) seems to have a different address. It _looks _like they all start the same way, though. One computer is xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa:aaaa, another is xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:bbbb:bbbb:bbbb:bbbb, my phone is xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:cccc:cccc:cccc:cccc, etc. Does this mean that xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx is the address for our network as a whole, and I can just set up a Google Analytics filter for "IP addresses starting with..."? Or would doing that also filter out hits from, like, every visitor within a 20 mile radius of our office? If I need to simply put in the individual addresses for each and every device, I will. I'm just hoping it doesn't come to that. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | BrianAlpert780 -
Google Analytics SEO Queries Not Showing
Hi All, This might be a silly question, but for all the properties I monitor in Google Analytics, I'm now showing no data for SEO Queries under Acquisition for the past 6 days. Normally I would expect a few day delay in queries, but nothing for 6 days is somewhat peculiar especially as it was functioning fine prior to November 12th. Does anyone have insight into what might be going on? Thanks! URaNMa3
Reporting & Analytics | | amichaels0 -
Google Analytics: Different stats for date range vs single month?
I've been scratching my head, chin, and you name it over this one. I have an advanced segment to remove bot traffic from my data. When I look at the Audience Overview data for a single month (let's say Aug). I am shown a session count. No problems here, however If I set the date range to (January - August). The august monthly stats is incorrect, much lower. What this means is that, if I export a CSV report from Jan-Aug, the data is wrong compared to individually recording a month. Anyone faced this? I've asked the question over at the Google Analytics technical section as well, but no answer P.S I even used the 'control the number of sessions used to calculate this report' tool but no luck.
Reporting & Analytics | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Is it possible to use Google Tag Manager to pass a user’s text input into a form field to Google analytics?
Hey Everyone, I finally figured out how to use auto event tracking with Google Tag Manager, but didn't get the data I wanted. I want to see what users are typing into the search field on my site (the URL structure of my site isn't set up properly to use GA's built-in site search tracking). So, I set up the form submit event tracking in Google Tag Manager and used the following as my event tracking parameters: Category: Search Action: Search Value When I test and look in Google Analytics I just see: "search" and "search value." I wanted to see the text that I searched on my site. Not just the Action and Category of the event.... Is what I'm trying to do even possible? Do I need to set up a different event tracking parameter? Thanks everyone!
Reporting & Analytics | | DaveGuyMan0 -
Why are plus signs (+) suddenly showing up in Google Analytics organic search keywords reports?
Since June 13, 2013, the number of organic search queries containing a plus sign (+) has gone up over 1,000% compared to the previous period on my site in Google Analytics. These plus signs appear to be taking the place of spaces in these search queries (i.e. "word1+word2+word3"). This appears to be almost (or completely) Google organic traffic, not other search engines. Since I highly doubt searcher behavior would change so suddenly, I'm trying to figure out why Google is replacing spaces with plus signs. Is anyone else seeing this? Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | RCF0 -
Google Analytic - Is it possible to see which organic keyword triggered goals?
Hi, I am trying to see which of my Google organic keywords triggered my goals? In GA I click > Conversion > Goals > Overview > Source Medium (This then says where my goals came from but when I click Google / Organic it just brings me to the overview page of my organic traffic). Is it possible to see which organic keywords trigger goals?
Reporting & Analytics | | AdvanceSystems0 -
Setting up Google Analytics for Subsites
I currently have one main .com site and am planning on launching geo-location subsites .co.uk, .com.au, .ru, etc... Traffic will flow between both sites and some of the content on the subsites will be duplicate and therefore include a canonical tag to the main site. I want to set up GA to capture who is going to the subsites and vice versa and correctly capture crossover traffic. Any advice on implementing advanced analytics directly (or links to sources that will direct me the right direction for this project)
Reporting & Analytics | | theLotter0 -
Localhost:4444 Showing Up in Google Analytics
Hello All, Lately in my Google Analytics account I have noticed a referral source labelled: localhost:4444 The number of visits is really high from this source, but I have no idea (no clue!) what it actually means. Can anyone shed some light on what this is about? Should I be creating some sort of filter to screen out this as a referral source (assuming it is not legitimate)? Many thanks in advance. Cheers!
Reporting & Analytics | | Robert-B0