SOP 035: Create Subdomain Reports in Google Analytics
Set up a hostname filter in Google Analytics that will add your page’s subdomain information to your reports to easily and accurately analyze your traffic and distinguish different subdomains.
Last Updated / Reviewed: 07/27/2024
Execution Time: 5-10 minutes
🚀 Goal: To set up a hostname filter in Google Analytics that will add your page’s subdomain information to your reports.
🤞 Ideal Outcome: You should be able to easily and accurately analyze your traffic reports and immediately distinguish the traffic among your subdomains.
🤔 Why this is important: If your website has multiple subdomains, Google Analytics will aggregate data that has the same page path. Understanding which sessions belong to which subdomains will require you to go through a few extra steps every time you’re analyzing results. This filter adds the subdomain information straight to your reports.
🧐 Where this is done In your Google Analytics account.
🗓️ When this is done: Only once per view.
👨 Who does this: The person responsible for Analytics.
__⚠️Prerequisites or requirements: __You need to have Google Analytics running on your website and all your subdomains, if you haven’t added it yet you can do so by following SOP 009 (web version).
The specific steps on this SOP apply only in Google Analytics 4 (newest update). Starting on July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing new data, and all customers will lose access to the Universal Analytics interface and API.
Click here to get the most up-to-date version of this SOP
Adding a Hostname Filter
01▸ Go to your Google Analytics Admin panel by clicking here .
02▸ If you have multiple Google Analytics accounts make sure you have selected the correct account, property, and view:
Remember: Filters are destructive, they permanently modify the incoming hits. That’s why you should make sure you are not doing these changes in your main and only view.
03▸ Go to "Admin" by clicking on the gear icon on your bottom left
04▸ Click on "Admin" and navigate to "Data collection and modification" then select "Data filters"
05▸ Next, click "Create filter"
06▸ Then, select "Internal traffic"
Note: Developer traffic: Filter out activity from developers who use debug mode. Internal traffic: Filter out users with an IP address or range of IP addresses.
07▸ Next, key in the data filter name
08▸ and then select "testing" to test the filter state
09▸ To check if the data filter testing is working, go to "Data collection and modification" > "Data streams" and select the data account. It may take some time for the account to receive traffic, especially if you are new to creating a data stream.
10▸ Next, we recommend to configure your traffic behavior. Scroll down and click "Configure tag settings" under "Google tag"
11▸ Click "Show more", scroll down and select "Define internal traffic"
12▸ You will then want to create new internal traffic rules
13▸ Here, please input a rule name (No.1) and your IP address (No.2 and No.3) before clicking the "Create" button (No.4)
Note: If you are unsure of your IP address, click on the "What's my IP address" hyperlink on your right to reveal your IP address.
14▸ [Recommended] Next, go to "Reports" on the navigation menu > "Examine user behaviour" > "Events" and click on the + button to filter your data
15▸ Condition your filter to only receive data including your hostname. By doing this, the data retrieved would be relevant and more accurate that matches exactly to your hostname only.
16▸ Additionally, ensure that your customized data report includes your hostname only. Click on the pencil icon on your top right and then click "Add filter". Follow the same step as the above.
17▸ Lastly, click "Save" to save the customized and filtered data report. That's it!
Checking If your filter is working as intended
01▸ Open your website homepage using Chrome.
02▸ Click on the Tag Assistant Companion Chrome Extension.
03▸ Click on “Enable”