What is a ‘View’ in Google Analytics? A ‘view’ in Google Analytics helps you focus on a subset of the data that it collects. For example, you can create a view to show only traffic to your blog. An E-commerce website can create a view to show only traffic to its product pages. You can also create a view to exclude traffic from an IP address. We take the help of ‘filters’ to exclude or include subsets of data.
How to create a view using Filters:
Let us learn to create a view using an example. Create view that 1) Shows only blog traffic and 2)Excludes traffic from your organization or home
Filter 1: Create a view that shows only traffic to /blog subdirectory. Let’s say, all blog posts on your website are on the subdirectory /blog (Example URL: http://example.com/blog/acoolblogpost). Now, we will create a reporting view that will show us only the traffic to our blog. Follow the below steps:
- Login to http://analytics.google.com
- Click on ‘Admin’ or gear icon
- Select the ‘Account’ and ‘Property’ for which the view is to be created.
- In the ‘View’ drop down, click ‘Create new view’. Important note: Google Analytics creates a default view called the ‘unfiltered view’. Never apply any filter to this view. Always create a new view and apply filters to this new view.
- Enter a Reporting view name (eg: Blog Traffic only) and select time zone.
- Click ‘Create View’
- Click ‘Filters’ for this view.
- Click ‘Add Filter’
- Configure Filter as below:
- Enter a filter name
- Select ‘Predefined’ tab
- For ‘Select Filter type’ , select ‘Include only’
- For ‘Select source or destination’, select ‘traffic to the subdirectories’
- For ‘Select expression’, select ‘that contain’
- In the subdirectory field, enter /blog
- Click ‘Save’
Check whether the view is reporting as per the filters applied:
- Click the ‘HOME’ button to go the reports section
- Expand the ‘Account Links’ menu on top left
- Select the new view that you have created
- In the Reporting Navigation, go to Real-Time>>Overview. Real-time report shows you visitors data in real time. Look for the ‘Top Active Pages’ report within the Real-time report screen. If your view has been configured properly, it will show only /blog pages in the report. Open another window and browse your website. While you do this check your real time reports in GA to ensure that data is shown as configured in the view.
Important Note:
- When you create/update a view, it is not applied retroactively. Earlier reports will not be reprocessed to apply the filter conditions. New or updated filters will be applied henceforth but will have no impact historical data.
- Google Analytics creates a default view called the ‘unfiltered view’. Never apply any filter to this view. Always create a new view and apply filters to this new view.
Filter 2: Exclude internal traffic i.e. traffic from your organization or home We have created a view that shows us only the blog traffic. Let us add a second filter to the same view to exclude your company or home’s internal traffic. We do this by excluding traffic coming from your company or home’s IP address. Tip: To know your IP address, Google search for ‘what is my ip’. Note: You can exclude internal traffic only if your ISP provides you static IP address and not dynamic IP address. Most broadband connections at home in India are on dynamic IP addresses.
- Login to http://analytics.google.com
- Click on ‘Admin’ or gear icon
- Select the view that we created earlier.
- Click ‘Filters’ for this view.
- Click ‘Add Filter’
- Configure Filter as below:
- Enter a filter name
- Select ‘Predefined’ tab
- Filter Type: ‘Exclude’
- Select Source or Destination: ‘traffic from the IP addresses’
- Select Expression: ‘that are equal to’
- IP address: Enter your IP address
- Click Save
Our new view now has two filters. One filter is used to filter out all non-blog traffic in the reports. The other filter filters-out internal traffic.
Assign Filter Order By default, filters are applied in the order in which they are created. In the view that we created earlier, the order in which the two filters are applied may have no impact on reports. But there can be situations where the filter order can impact the reports.You can use the ‘Assign Filter Order’ feature to rearrange the order in which filters are applied.
On the Filters page, click the tab ‘Assign Filter Order
Now select a filter and click the ‘Move up’ and ‘Move down’ button to rearrange the order. Click save
