Totally Remove "localhost" entries from Google Analytics

[Robert-B]

Hello All,

In Google Analytics I see a bunch of traffic coming from "localhost:4444 / referral".

I had tried once before to create a filter to exclude this traffic source, but obviously I did it wrong since it's still showing up.

Here is the filter I have currently:

Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Filter Type: Custom filter > Exclude
Filter Field: Referral
Filter Pattern:  .localhost:4444.
Case Sensitive: No

Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong and give me a push in the right direction?

Thanks in advance!

[Saphera]

The filter I used a long time ago that worked at the time was a hostname one using (.?localhost.?)

Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Filter Type: Custom filter > Hostname
Filter Pattern: (.?localhost.?)
Case Sensitive: No

Now I block via code so I'm not sure if this still works - feel free to try.  Also, I'm not sure why the filter uses both * and ? since the star should be inclusive of ? wildcard but I can no longer find the source.

Good luck

[Malx]

Hi Robert,

did you resolve this problem as I have exactly the same thing showing on my analytics too and it is driving me mad?

[Robert-B]

Does anyone have any ideas?

I'm still totally stumped!

[Robert-B]

Does anyone have any ideas?

Having this silly "localhost:4444" entry is skewing all of my numbers and no matter what I try, it won't seem to filter it out.

Any help is very much appreciated!

Thanks!

[Robert-B]

Thanks Mike.

At least I know I'm not alone in being totally & completely baffled!

Hopefully someone else can give me a push in the right direction.

Cheers!

[mikecp]

I'm sort of baffled, myself. I see no reason why this would be unfilterable. I'm marking this as an unanswered question, hopefully someone comes to our rescue here.

[Robert-B]

Putting the filter pattern of "localhost" did not work... sadly.

I still see "localhost:4444 / referral" in my reports.

There must be a way to filter this out.... I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem (or at least I hope not!)

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[Robert-B]

There was no real reason I wasn't just trying localhost.

I just thought we needed some other parameters on there... but clearly those weren't working.

I just updated the filter now and I'll check tomorrow's data to see if the answer was really this simple.

Thanks!

[mikecp]

Was there any reason you're not trying just

localhost

as the filter pattern? No asterisks, quotes, backslashes or anything?

[Robert-B]

Unfortunately that did not work.

I still see this in my referral reports:

localhost:4444 / referral

Just to confirm, the filter I set is:

Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Filter Type: Custom Filter > Exclude
Filter Field: Referral
Filter Pattern: localhost*
Case Sensitive: No

Any other ideas? I'll try anything.

[Host1]

Do you have a update on this? Did it work?

[Robert-B]

If I put localhost then I get a "Regular expression is invalid" error.

I'll put: localhost*

I'll watch it for a couple days and see what happens.

Thanks!

[Host1]

1: the "." in front of "*localhost" might break the filter i guess. The same goes for the "." after "4444".

2: Have you tried localhost*  or localhost ?

[Robert-B]

Thanks for the link... this is kind of what I had followed earlier, but it still doesn't work.

In my original question you can see the current filter I have setup.

Yet, for some reason this is not blocking what I need since I still see "localhost:4444 / referral" in my reports.

Any other ideas?