3 Google Analytics filters to use

---

In Google Analytics, the filters provide us with the flexibility to modify and change the data and adjust the account settings as per the requirements of our website. You can use the Google Analytics filter to include or exclude data, transfer files from one platform to another so that it gets aligned in a better way and fulfills the requirements of your business.

How you prepare your reports depends on how the data is analyzed in your Google Analytics account. With the help of filters, you can easily transform, edit, or change the data. Thus, Google Analytics can apply filters from the raw form to the aligned form of your website. This way, the processing of the data becomes easier and convenient, and the filtered data provides you with the accurate reports about traffic generated on your website.

The Customer Success Manager of Semalt, elaborates here on 3 main types of filters that all webmasters use in their Google Analytics accounts: spambot filters, internal IP address exclusion, and forcing the referral sources or pages to lowercase.

1. Spambot Filters

The spambot filters are easy to use and give plenty of options to choose from. You can adjust their settings from the View Settings option in your Google Analytics account. For this, you should go to the dashboard and look for the Bot Filters option. Click this option and activate it, followed by closing the windows. With this option, it is very easy for anyone to adjust the lists of spiders and bots in their Google Analytics account. Apply the filters to as many pages as possible to get the desired results.

---

2. Exclude All Internal IP Addresses

The second thing you need to pay attention to is eliminating the internal IP addresses. For this, you should open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin section. Here you will find the View Settings option, where you have to select the Filter option to create lots of filters. Keep on doing so until you have created enough filters for your website. Before you begin creating filters, you should always make sure that you apply the existing filters if you have any. The next step is to give proper names to all of the filters, and select between the predefined and custom filters. A predefined filter is a template for the commonly used filters, while a custom filter is a way to fit your filters in all types of situations. Once you have created the desired number of filters, the last step is to verify them. Google Analytics does not provide any option for the verification of filters, so you have to do it using another option.

3. Force the URLs to Lowercase

Forcing the URLs to lowercase for better results is possible. You can use the filters to clean up the data. For instance, if your website shows a large number of page views and you've not done SEO, then the referral spam is likely to be present. In such circumstances, you should have pages with lowercase URLs rather than the uppercase URLs. Once you have adjusted their settings to lowercase, you should not forget to verify their authentication before closing the window.