How to filter out traffic from subdomain using regex?
-
Hi There,
We have a test server that lives on a subdomain which we'd like to filter out in Google Analytics.
We're using the hostname filter but are having trouble understanding the regex needed, we're using this as the filter pattern:
Will that work? The profile is new so we can't test the pattern. Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Ben
-
Actually, I this we just put the hostname in there right?
A previous consultant had put a regular expression in there (the one from the question) but I suspect we just add the hostname.
-
Or do we just put this into the field?
domain
Will simply find 'domain' anywhere?
Cheers
Ben
-
Thanks Martijn, much appreciated.
It now looks like we're escaping the . (dot) - is that right? We're actually trying to match anything before and after 'domain' - to match any site on our test server.
Do we need something like this instead?
^domain.
Sorry I'm not understanding how this works - have read so many tutorials but can't figure out what the 'anything' character is?
Cheers
Ben
-
Hi Ben,
This won't completely work as the . (dot) also has a function in Regular Expression which means it can be any single character. So what you need to do is escape that one. Then it will eventually become something like:
.*domain.com.
Martijn.
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
-
Sudden drop in traffic since website redesign – can't spot double firing sessions pre-update
Hi all, We launched an updated website around mid-April and have seen a long-term drop in unique page views and sessions since then. Between 25-35%. Page views returned to normal within a month, however. In terms of acquisition, we've not lost referrals or direct traffic, just organic sessions. I haven't seen any significant Google updates except for 'Fred' but that was in March (pre-website update). We did have to do some 301s and fix up an HTML and XML sitemap, etc, post launch – but that's been in place for a while now so shouldn't still have such an effect? We are also struggling with load speed at the moment, working on this at the moment. Didn't think this had a such a significant impact on ranking however. We've lost mostly non-UK traffic, especially USA. We're actually climbing rankings for a lot of new keywords I'm targeting, so I can't see how our SEO has been hampered. Frustratingly, I wasn't using Search Console or Moz Pro before this update, so can't compare much in the way of keyword traffic (I know I feel very silly now). I don't know if it's a reporting issue (I wish it was). I mean we had both GTM and GA tags on the website (I didn't know this until I looked into it) but these were present post website-launch. And I haven't found enough double firing sessions or page views to suggest we used to be getting double figures anyway. Before this, we were ranking brilliantly and getting more organic traffic than ever. All the best,
Reporting & Analytics | | landport0 -
How do I exclude fake direct load traffic from networks in Google Analytics?
Starting on Friday 1/20, we noticed a huge, unnatural spike in Direct Load traffic. While researching where it was coming from, the big flags were huge spikes in countries that normally only have <5 sessions a month like Russia, Singapore, Brazil, etc., each sending 1400 a week, with >99% bounce rate and <0:00:05 average session duration. While looking into networks, we saw an influx in Networks that had never sent traffic before, each with >1300 sessions a week, 100% bounce rate, and 0:00:00 session duration. The list of these Networks are: astute hosting usa incorporated
Reporting & Analytics | | ServiceMichael
nephoscale inc.
network transit holdings llc
serverbeach
coreix ltd
2ezhost llp
nforce entertainment b.v.
mir telematiki ltd
servers australia pty ltd wholesale services provider for abuse
reliablehosting
dimenoc servicos de informatica ltda
c0715718213 I have seen a lot of guides of filtering out Referral traffic, but these are all coming in as Direct Load and are skewing our Direct Load results. Any idea how to filter or remove this traffic from Google Analytics?0 -
Direct / (none) Spam Traffic Help
In July 2015, we experienced an over 1,000% increase in traffic and it has remained like that ever since. It's all spam traffic and I have no clue how to get rid of it. I added in your typical .htaccess blocks from known culprits with little to no effect. Read up on Ghost traffic and applied filters to no effect. The spam is completely distributed as far as I can tell both geographically as well as by network providers. Where once we had pretty decent bounce rates of around 50%, now, since all my Analytics data is meaningless - it's around 90%. I could apply a filter but beyond my GA account providing no insights, I'm also concerned about the increased use of server resources. I'd ideally like to stop the traffic completely. The only distinguishing feature of the traffic that I have been able to determine is browser size. Comparing June 2015 to July 2015 we saw the following: Browser size visits: 620 x 460 = 6,828 vs 0, 610 x 450 = 175 vs 0, 1330 x 630 = 71 vs 1, 1890 x 940 = 67 vs 0, 780 x 580 = 58 v 5. Other than that, I can find no unifying theme to the traffic beyond being traffic hitting our homepage and having no medium. Nothing special that I am aware of happened in July. We didn't do any sort of...really anything. We did have our network compromised by ransomware in the beginning of June, which we promptly ignored and restored backups - at no point did we try to contact the criminals, but I am doubtful there is any connection considering that our website is remotely hosted. If anyone has any suggestions or has seen anything like this before, please let me know. spam-traffic.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | Nivik230 -
Google Analytics unexplainable traffic spike
Viewing this report **Behaviour > Site content > All pages **with primary dimensions of **Page ** and **Page title **are showing different results for one specific page on our site. We noticed a huge spike in pageviews and entrances to that specific page on our site. The user flow report shows traffic going through and from the page (in high volume) from other pages on the site which suggests that it's not the usual case of spam referrals. When I view the report above by page, I get unrealistic data. Over 600% increase in pageviews and over 900% increase in entrances. When I view by page title however, I get realistic results. Can anyone help shed some light on why these two reports will be different? Anyone else seeing similar issues?
Reporting & Analytics | | OptiBacUK0 -
Can you arrange Google Analytics source/medium traffic by percentage change?
I'm doing a year to year traffic audit for a client. I would like to analyze Google Analytics source/medium traffic by percent change. Is there a way to do this? Do I have to create a custom variable? 9BH70RO
Reporting & Analytics | | VanguardCommunications0 -
Getting Traffic for an Unranked Phrase
Over the last month, 40% of a client's search traffic as resulted from a phrase that they are not even ranking for in the top 100; nor are they popping up on PPC ads for it. How is this happening? I feel like I am missing something very obvious.
Reporting & Analytics | | ScriptiLabs0 -
If I am changing my domain for my website and want to keep using the same Google Analytics account to keep the data from the old domain. How should I proceed?
If I am changing my domain for my website and want to keep using the same Google Analytics account to keep the data from the old domain. How should I proceed? Do I have to start a new Google Analytics account for the new domain? If so how do I keep the old data? Or can I use the same GA account? Thank you.
Reporting & Analytics | | brianhughes1 -
Exclude Traffic from India
i would like to exclude all traffic coming from India using Advanced Segment in Google Analytics. How do i go about it ? Will it be applied to future traffic also ?
Reporting & Analytics | | seoug_20050