Introduction

If you’ve noticed daily visits from Council Bluffs, Iowa in your Shopify analytics, you’re not alone. Many Shopify store owners report seeing frequent visits from this location, often without clear explanations. This article explores the source of these visits and provides strategies to manage them in your analytics.

Problem Overview: Unusual Visits from Council Bluffs

Store owners have observed consistent visits from Council Bluffs, Iowa, appearing in their analytics without any obvious connections to their customer base. These visits typically happen daily and may skew analytics data, particularly for smaller stores where a few visits make a noticeable impact on metrics.

Solution: Explanation Behind the Council Bluffs Visits

The daily visits from Council Bluffs are generated by Shopify’s Site Speed Report. Shopify uses a Google Developer tool hosted in a Google data center in Council Bluffs to test your store’s loading speed. This tool visits three specific pages on your site—typically the homepage, a popular collection page, and a popular product page—to analyze speed and provide benchmarking data against other stores.

Steps to Manage Council Bluffs Visits in Analytics

1. Use Google Analytics Filters: If you use Google Analytics, set up a filter to exclude visits from Council Bluffs by filtering out its IP address or specific location. This helps reduce the impact of these automated visits on your data.
2. Reach Out to Shopify Support: Contact Shopify support if these visits significantly affect your analytics. While Shopify cannot always turn off this testing feature, reporting it may lead to future options to manage or adjust these testing visits.
3. Monitor Your Analytics for Unusual Traffic Patterns: Regularly check your analytics to understand the proportion of automated visits versus actual customer traffic. This helps you interpret your data more accurately.

Additional Tips for Handling Unwanted Traffic in Analytics

• Set Up IP Exclusions: Whenever possible, exclude bot and automated visits from your analytics using IP or location filters. This prevents artificial inflation of metrics such as page views or session duration.
• Request More Control Over Testing Frequency: If the automated visits from Shopify affect your analytics, suggest that Shopify adds a control option for store owners. Some merchants have expressed interest in choosing the frequency of these tests.
• Adjust for Testing Visits in Reporting: When analyzing your site’s performance, remember to account for the automated Council Bluffs visits so they don’t distort key metrics like bounce rates or conversion rates.

Conclusion

The visits from Council Bluffs, Iowa are a result of Shopify’s Site Speed Report, which helps benchmark your store’s speed. Although these visits can be annoying, especially for smaller stores, they are not harmful and can be filtered out in analytics. Implementing some of the steps above can help you manage this traffic and gain clearer insights from your data.

FAQs

• Why are visits from Council Bluffs appearing daily?
  These visits are due to Shopify’s Site Speed Report, which tests your site daily from a Google data center located in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
• Can I stop these visits?
  Currently, Shopify does not offer an option to disable the Site Speed Report. However, you can reach out to Shopify support and suggest more flexibility with this feature.
• How can I exclude these visits from my analytics?
  Use Google Analytics to set up location or IP filters to remove the Council Bluffs visits from your reports.
• Do these visits affect my site’s performance?
  No, these visits are automated and have no impact on your site’s actual performance or customer experience. They are only for speed benchmarking purposes.