Exclude Your Own Visits from GA Without a Fixed IP Address

If you're interested in excluding dynamic IP addresses, I suggest following the steps in this article. However, if you want something faster or less involved, this article contains 2 super easy methods to exclude your own internal traffic from Google Analytics when you have a dynamic IP address or are using your mobile data network. They don't require configuring cookies or custom dimensions -- you can set up either method in just a couple minutes.

METHOD 1: BLOCK YOUR OWN TRAFFIC FROM GA WITH THE GA OPT-OUT PLUGIN

The Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on is a plug-in for Chrome that tells Google Analytics not to send the information to Google Analytics' servers. Just install it and your data won't show up in the reports.

METHOD 2: EXCLUDE YOURSELF FROM GA WITH A FILTER

This method is good if you can't or don't want to use the Opt-Out plugin. It has the advantage of working across any browser and device, not just Chrome on your desktop. It also won't block your tracking calls on sites other than your own.

1. Set up the Filter
   

    

   in Google Analytics, navigate to Admin > View > Filters > +Add Filter

   

   Choose the following options:
   Create new Filter
   Filter name = Exclude Self
   Exclude Filter Field = Campaign Medium
   Filter Pattern = exclude

    

    

2. In your browser, enter your site's URL with "utm" query strings appended to the end. Like this:

   www.yoursite.com/?utm_medium=exclude&utm_source=exclude
   

   Hit Enter. That's it!

HOW IT WORKS

Since you've set GA to exclude any sessions with marketing medium = exclude, and you've set yourself with marketing medium = exclude, you'll be erased from the reports.The utm_source part is just because GA requires that both of these be populated -- otherwise it will ignore both.

This will work for future sessions as well without needing to keep appending the query string, since the associated marketing medium persists unless you delete cookies from your browser or come to your site from a new marketing source.

NOTES ON EXCLUDING YOUR OWN TRAFFIC

1. Filters take several hours to become active.  So you need to set up the filter in advance, it won't work if you set the filter and then immediately enter the URL.
2. When you add that utm_medium parameter to your URL it gets associated with a cookie that GA stores on your computer. If you clear your cookies, you'll need to enter that special URL again
3. If you come in from a new marketing source like  paid search, it will overwrite your marketing medium so you won't be excluded anymore. Bookmarking/ typing in the URL directly, which accounts for most internal traffic, is fine though since GA associates "direct" traffic with the prior source.