Introduction

Many Shopify store owners have noticed recurring daily visits from Council Bluffs, Iowa, on their site analytics. At first glance, this can seem odd and may raise concerns about automated bots or unauthorized access. However, these visits are actually part of Shopify’s standard site monitoring process. This article explains why these visits happen, what it means for your site metrics, and how you can manage the impact on your analytics data.

1. What Are These Daily Visits?

For Shopify users, recurring visits from Council Bluffs, Iowa, are often logged as daily site visits. These visits typically appear at consistent times and might initially appear unusual or suspicious, especially if you are not targeting an audience in that area. However, this is a common occurrence across many Shopify sites.

2. Why Are They Coming from Council Bluffs?

Shopify leverages Google’s data centers to perform site performance monitoring, and these data centers are located in various areas, including Council Bluffs, Iowa. Google’s data centers are responsible for monitoring and gathering data for various analytical purposes, including those related to site speed, functionality, and SEO performance.

3. Shopify’s Site Speed Report

One key reason behind these visits is Shopify’s daily site speed report. Shopify uses Google’s Lighthouse, a developer tool to test three main pages on your website – the homepage, a popular product page, and a collection page. This report helps Shopify gather data on how quickly your pages load and compares them with other sites on the platform.

Since Google’s data center in Council Bluffs is often the source of this activity, these visits show up as originating from this location, affecting small-scale site owners more than large sites due to fewer overall visits.

4. How to Filter These Visits in Analytics

If you use Google Analytics, you can set up filters to exclude traffic originating from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Here’s how to create a filter:

• Step 1: Log into your Google Analytics account and select the appropriate property.
• Step 2: Navigate to Admin > View Settings > Filters.
• Step 3: Click on “Add Filter,” then set it to exclude visits from “City” containing “Council Bluffs.”
• Step 4: Save the filter and monitor your data for changes.

5. Impact on Your Site Metrics

For small sites, these daily visits may affect key metrics such as bounce rate, conversion rates, and average session duration. While a site receiving thousands of visits per day will experience a negligible impact, a smaller site may see significant shifts in analytics because of a handful of visits. For example, having three non-converting sessions each day can lower conversion rates and affect bounce rates.

6. Can These Visits Be Stopped?

At present, Shopify does not provide an option to disable this daily testing. Shopify has stated that these tests are part of the platform’s commitment to helping stores optimize for speed and performance, and they currently run on all active Shopify stores.

7. Alternatives and Solutions

Though it is not possible to stop these visits, there are ways to manage them. Consider the following approaches:

• Custom Reporting: Use filtered views in Google Analytics to create reports that exclude Council Bluffs as a source, helping you get clearer insights.
• Use Segmented Data: Use segmented reporting for core metrics, focusing only on traffic from your actual target audience locations.
• Feedback to Shopify: Reach out to Shopify support to provide feedback. More feedback may encourage Shopify to offer better control over this feature.

Conclusion

The regular visits from Council Bluffs on Shopify sites are the result of Google’s data center-based site speed tests conducted by Shopify. While these visits are meant to improve site performance, they can skew metrics, especially for smaller sites. By filtering these visits and understanding their purpose, you can maintain clearer analytics data.

Providing feedback to Shopify may also contribute to future improvements in how site performance tests are managed, benefiting smaller sites in particular.

FAQs

• Why are the visits from Council Bluffs happening daily?
  These are Shopify’s automated speed tests using Google’s data center in Council Bluffs.
• Can I stop these visits?
  Currently, there is no option to disable these daily visits from Shopify’s end.
• How can I manage the impact on my analytics?
  You can create filters in Google Analytics to exclude these visits from your reports.
• Is this affecting my site’s security?
  No, these are automated checks run by Google’s data centers for site performance purposes and pose no security risk.