How Can I Exclude My Visits To Site?

[trynet]

Is there a way to exclude my IP address when I use my site?

Update: It’s now easy to exclude your internal traffic from being counted in your stats. See how here: https://plausible.io/docs/excluding

[metmarkosaric]

It’s now easy to exclude your internal traffic from being counted in your stats. See how here: https://plausible.io/docs/excluding

[bencresty]

Nice! Another question I had answered!

[Mark-eee]

... but the answer doesn't appear to work

[bencresty]

Guess I have to agree, it's not a final solution,, because as a (front-end) developer, at least I am, you're constantly erasing data from the browser. I do it when closing the browser as well as several times in between working. And if we have to re-disable Plausible with the command we have to go back to the website once again, and so trigger another unwanted event everytime we do this.

With Google Analytics I did it this way:

• bookmark the website with a special querystring parameter, only I know
• everytime I visit the site I do it only via that url with that special querystring as entry url (the following clicks don't matter)
• everytime I went to the website I could easily recognise it was me in the user data of GA, because the first entry url always have that special querystring key, and erase that user so the data is not counted on the long run

Not ideal either, but it somewhat worked on GA.

That's, unfortunately, not possible in Plausible.

However, I have an idea that I think does work, but we need help and a change in the tool by Plausible:

• Add a setting on the Plausible side per site to let us add a secret query string parameter-key, only we know
• Than we can bookmark in our dev-browser(s) an url of the website we use as first entry url with a querystring with that special parameter-key (like ?986496894864-968pipigprirupr=true or whatever)
• Every day you visit the website to do work you always enter the website once via a page (doesn't matter which page as long as it's on the tracked domain) with that special querystring parameter in the query string (easy to do and you don't have to remember the querystring parameter, because you bookmarked a page with that parameter in it)
• From now on Plausible knows that it is you, because it knows the secret parameter-key you entered (and only you know) and it knows it's the same user for a day with every new visit, so it also should know now, even on pages on that domain that doesn't have that querystring (because it was only on the bookmarked page) that it's still you and so you're still want to be incognito. So it doesn't track you still. Only the next day, when you're not being recognized as begint the same user anymore, because the hash of Plausible rotates per day, you have to re-enter the website via a link with the secret parameter key in the querystring again to be safe for another day!

Like this you don't have to worry about any tracked pageview. And not even one pageview gets added, as you don't have to go the a page first to disable the tracking.

drawback... with solution
The drawback is that you cannot track from the same browser on the same day if you'd like, once you entered via an url on the domain with that special key. But that's easily solved too: Just add another setting with a second secret querystring key in Plausible to CANCEL the ignore so you're being tracked again! And if you never cancel it max takes 24 hours to being tracked again, because it's another day, so another hash. Although the hash could remain the same once Plausible has received the ignore code, because it's perfectly fine to keep tracking you as the same person, as you specifically asked for it. And you have the key to undo it by cancelling the ignoring!

this also makes it less easy to recognize the script to block it
This also solves another issue that is there now we know that local storage key exists to cancel tracking: everybody can use that localstorage key to turn off tracking. So blockers just have to add that key to the local storage on every website you visit and when that website uses plausible it just doesn't track you. So the blocker doesn't have to recognise if a script is by Plausible or not, it only needs to set that key on every website visit.

And if everybody has that key set to true it doesn't make sense to use analytics and we have the same issue as with Google Analytics and the blockers again.. Although it's still easy to sniff the dom for the plausible() function and turn it off. But that is easy to avoid when we could change the name of the plausible function!

[Mark-eee]

Hi. I've looked at the article you link to. Does putting "localStorage.plausible_ignore=true" in the web browser console work even after I 'clear browsing data'? I've currently got my browsers set up to delete cookies and history when quitting. So will this approach continue to work?

[Mark-eee]

2. I've now cleared the Safari history, web data (cache). Quit it and restarted. The "Ignoring Event: localStorage flag" is no longer visible in the console. Presumably this means that clearing the browser web data also clears out the Plausible exclusion code. Which makes it very hard to exclude my site visits to my website

[metmarkosaric]

I see. Does Safari allow you to clear cookies from all domains but make an exception for some like your own domain? Firefox has that feature but not sure about Safari.

Otherwise if you still want to clear cookies, you could install an adblocker and manually block our script from your site using the UI of the adblocker.

Unfortunately because we are privacy first we don't use cookies nor IP addresses so there's no way to exclude yourself using those.

[Mark-eee]

I'd love to use Plausible but I need to regularly clear cache / history so that I can see changes to websites that I'm developing/tweaking. And from what I can tell clearing cache /history also removes "localStorage.plausible_ignore=true" from the browser? Can you try this?

As for Adblockers I don't want to have to go down this road. I don't know anything about AdBlockers and secondly I'd have to get clients to set them up on their computers to prevent their site visits being added to the stats. I can't see clients doing this.

[Vigasaurus]

Are you sure that clearing your cache/history is clearing the local storage flag? By default it shouldn't, as far as I'm aware. You could check this if you just run localStorage.plausible_ignore in the same console, it should return "true" in theory. If it returns undefined or similar, it'd mean that the local storage flag is getting cleared.

As for users excluding themselves on mobile, see this version of a html page in the docs that you could make available tu users on your site to exclude themselves (even on mobile, and without using the console).

[Mark-eee]

On Mac OS (11.2.3) Safari (14.0.3), it all works fine, until I "Clear History". This also clears the local storage flag. After clearing history, I have checked as you suggested. It returned "undefined".

On the same Mac, in Chrome (latest version) I can't get the exclusion thing to work at all. When I quit Chrome, re-start it and look in the Console there is no mention of "ignore event: localStorage flag". And when I run localStorage.plausible_ignore is returns with undefined.

It appears that it is not possible to exclude my visits, and therefore this is going to stop me from being able to use Plausible

[Vigasaurus]

These discussions give me some good ideas for a potential browser addon - where you can store and save the plausible domains, and potentially specific paths too, such that you can exclude them for yourself only based on that extension working similarly to an adblocker where it blocks requests directly. It might need a bit of closer integration with the script because of the whole manifest v3 situation on Chromium, but that's not a big deal, and I haven't looked into it much.

This way the exclusion is handled by the extensions, so clearing cookies or local storage won't affect the extension's saved settings.

I might look into fleshing out something like this at some point in the near future, would love to hear any feedback/ideas regarding it before then. It'd probably be largely targeted towards the development experience, and mostly lean into the hosted version.

Edit: This idea is pretty much scrapped given other discussions & the general lack of necessity.

[metmarkosaric]

From the studies we've done the adblocker usage varies depending on the type of audience/site. It's less than 10% for the non-tech sites but can be up to 30% on more tech focused sites.

As long as you can change the CNAME on your domain name, you are good to go. All domain providers allow you to do that so if you search their docs for CNAME you should get some simple instructions. It is normally done within their user interface so no need for coding or anything. It takes about 2 mins.

[bencresty]

we recently improved the way you can exclude yourself from being tracked

Yes, for everybody and everything, including ad blockers, 'causing an issue in the analytics by it not being reliable now or in the near future.

@Mark-eee @metmarkosaric

With the custom domain enabled, Chrome and Safari adblockers will not block Plausible. Only uBlock Origin when used with Firefox can still block it and Brave browser itself. We plan to fix those cases in the future too but they stand for a small percentage of traffic

no, it doesn't matter if you host the script via CNAME, as the switch still works and there's not even a need to sniff if the script is Plausible or not; a blocker only needs to set the local storage key on every site you visit and Plausible is blocked everywhere.

That's great – it overcomes the problem @bencresty raised.

No, it's still exactly the same. The only way to really prevent ad blockers to block Plausible is as I've written before:

• Remove the switch from the front end script
• Move the switch to the back end of Plausible, so on the server
• Make it possible for people, only the ones WHO KNOW THE KEY!!, to let plausible know it's us visiting and we don't want to be tracked: by adding a query string parameter to the url with the key only we know to the url (see my previous posts)
• Make it possible to set a name for the plausible function from within our settings, so it's not even possible for blockers to sniff the window object on the page or even the script itself to find out it's plausible
• Don't try to recognize us by our IP address, as it's not working when visiting from behind a VPN, like when working in a public place via untrusted WIFI

From the studies we've done the adblocker usage varies depending on the type of audience/site. It's less than 10% for the non-tech sites but can be up to 30% on more tech focused sites.

It's a lot more than 30%, more like 50%, which is half of the visitors on a lot of websites.

But I stop writing about this now as it's clearly not a priority by Plausible, you obviously don't want to get, recognize, acknoledge and fix the issue, and I am repeating myself over and over.

[metmarkosaric]

On plausible.io website which has a very tech-savvy, privacy first and open source audience, the usage of adblockers is at about 20% in April 2021. This is at a higher end of scale while most sites see adblocker usage at a much lower levels. And our exclusion script doesn't affect adblockers and doesn't help them block our script. Feel free to test this on your site so you can confirm the numbers for yourself.

[ukutaht]

But I stop writing about this now as it's clearly not a priority by Plausible, you obviously don't want to get, recognize, acknoledge and fix the issue, and I am repeating myself over and over.

@bencresty I've read everything you've written. I recognize and acknowledge that the localStorage switch makes Plausible easier to block. I will address this when I have time to work on that part of the system. Luckily I'm not aware of any adblocker using the flag to block us currently.

You're right in that this is not a priority for us at the moment. I am currently focused on the API and our billing system. I am not going to ditch ongoing planned work to fix this issue.

I'm sorry some of your messages got ignored. Maybe others have more headspace to think about this at the moment but my answer is as follows: looks interesting, I will take a look at your proposal in depth when I work on this area of the project..

Tentatively I still think that a Plausible browser extension would be the ideal solution. I don't understand your concern about blocking. People use uBlock, AdBlock, AdGuard etc for blocking. If we release an extension that allows you to selectively (meaning you have to opt into it) block Plausible on certain domains, I really don't see how it would affect your stats negatively.

[bencresty]

@ukutaht Thanks for your response. I understand you guys are busy and have to chose between several wishes as everybody got her/his own requests. Great to read you want to reconsider this though!

[metmarkosaric]

"just a heads up but "localStorage.plausible_ignore=true" doesn't seem to do anything in MacOS Big Sur, Safari 14.0.3"

reported via twitter

[soynomm]

... I was about to write that I also tried with localStorage.setItem(key, value), but tried again before writing and ... seems a restart of Safari has resolved all issues. I feel very stupid now. Apologies!

[metmarkosaric]

no problem! thanks for the update!

[Vigasaurus]

From my experience Safari is very picky about allowing access to localStorage in what it considers "insecure contexts", my assumption it was something related to that.

[Mark-eee]

I'm confused because "localStorage.plausible_ignore=true" works for me in MacOS Big Sur, Safari 14.0.3.

[euler0]

Maybe this is a reason? 7-Day Cap on All Script-Writeable Storage (WebKit Blog)

I’m still prefer custom domain setup with DNS filtering.

[metmarkosaric]

Update: It’s now easy to exclude your internal traffic from being counted in your stats. See how here: https://plausible.io/docs/excluding