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.
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!
-
Thanks for the response guys. I certainly appreciate your help.
It definitely sounds like this is not "real" traffic... whether it's a backup service or our web development team.
I am, however, a bit confused.
I know we are running backup software on our server (we're paranoid about backups!), but I don't understand why that would trigger a visit in Google Analytics.
The backup software (as far as I know) is copying files to our backup server so it would never really visit the page to trigger the on-page Google Analytics code.
This could be the result of my web-development team previewing pages with the Google Analytics code from their local machine.
Under the assumption that my best move is to create a filter to block this traffic, would that filter just be:
Exclude | traffic from the domains | that are equal to |
Domain = localhost
Or would I need to put: localhost:4444
Or can I put: localhost:* (as a wildcard to block all localhosts)
Thanks in advance. I'll totally create the filter right away once I know how to do it properly.
-
Usually localhost referrals are from internal networks, likely from your web development team. You can create a filter to block out your internal IP address. Or you could use a Chrome extension to block yourself from showing up in your Analytics - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fadgflmigmogfionelcpalhohefbnehm
-
It's probably worth speaking to your hosting provide to find out what services are running on your server. I'm guessing a bit, but I'm thinking it's probably some kind of backup / sync service...
If your hosting company does indeed say that it's a legitimate service then yes, you do want to filter these out of your google analytics.
Do you have a local version of your website hosted on your own machine (still with the analytics code live?)
Your best bet is to create a new profile (so you can always go back to your "normal" profile" and filter out traffic from the localhost domain.
Profile filters will only affect data going forward, not existing data. If you're trying to filter existing data, make an advanced segment to exclude "Source" containing localhost:4444.
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
-
Why is Indeed.com traffic appearing as organic in Google Analytics?
A large number of sessions in my client's Google Analytics account appear to come from medium: organic and source:Indeed. Since I'm focused on SEO for this project, I'd prefer that Indeed be treated as referral traffic. Any ideas for fixing this issue? Also, and I'm sure the answer is no, is there a way to fix the past data in Google Analytics that has already reported Indeed as an organic medium?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin_P0 -
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 -
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 -
Google Analytics Organic Search Keywords Suddenly Displaying FulL Urls
In my Google Analytics, the top keywords for Organic Search are suddenyl displaying full URLs. For example, now the third and fourth keywords are http://www.domain.com/highly-specific-URL. These have all started recently around the same day, July 12th. I've checked back, and we've made no internal changes to the site around that time that could affect this. Any thoughts on this? Thanks! P.S. It might be related to rich snippets, but I cannot tell at this point.
Reporting & Analytics | | 10SL0 -
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 -
How to track what people type on my text boxes on Google Analytics?
Hi there! In our website, we have a few text boxes that users need to use to complete the goal. The boxes aren't search boxes, but it's still important to us to track what people type on it. I'm looking for a way to track the data through the "event" feature in Google Analytics, but it seems that this tracker can only calculate clicks, or video views etc. Does anyone knows how to track do it?
Reporting & Analytics | | ivan.precisodisso0 -
Google Analytics: how many visits from country Google domains?
Hello, I manage a site with visitors from many different countries. With Google Analytics, it is normal to see the number of visitors from each search engine. However, I would like to identify the number of visitors from each Google-search contry domain. How many visitors from Google.com? How many from Google.co.uk. And from Google.co.zm? And so on. Anybody knows if this is possible and if yes, how can it be done? Thank you in advance, Dario
Reporting & Analytics | | Darioz0