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I am a developer and I am setting up Google Analytics on our application.

I would like a way to exclude all our developers from the Analytics results - we aren't typical users and our behaviour will produce a distorted view overall.

I have set up filters to exclude our office IP address, and home IP addresses.

But developers often work from cafes, tethered mobile phones, etc - so we realistically can't block ourselves by IP.

I'm using user ID tracking: is there any way I could use this within Analytics to ignore these results?

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    Just to add to Tom's answer, Google provides a browser extension for this very purpose: Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. You can also add the domain for the Google Analytics JavaScript file to the hosts file in computers for a more permanent solution while testing between different browsers (e.g., add 0.0.0.0 google-analytics.com as covered here), but be aware that this will block Google Analytics being recorded from any site thereafter until it's removed from the hosts file.
    – dan
    Sep 1, 2017 at 8:51

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The solution is to have the developers block Google Analytics with a browser extension, instead of trying to do this from within Google Analytics itself. An ad blocker subscribed to a "block list" of third-party trackers will do, or try something more targeted like the EFF's Privacy Badger.

Like it or not, usage of tools like these is increasing and it is probably best practice to test your site with them anyway. As an additional bonus, your developers will have more privacy online and will be less vulnerable to malware distributed via ad networks, which is a recurring problem.

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