I’m setting up Matomo for a website and noticed that my own visits are being included in the visitor and pageview reports. Since I regularly visit the site while testing changes, this can make the numbers a little misleading.
What is the recommended way to exclude my own traffic from Matomo analytics? I’d prefer a solution that doesn’t require me to remember to change anything every time I visit the site.
Also, does Matomo provide a way to exclude traffic from a specific IP address or browser?
Yes, Matomo provides several ways to exclude your own visits so they don’t affect your reports.
For an individual user, one of the easiest options is to use the Matomo ignore cookie. You can set this from your Matomo Personal Settings under “Exclude your visits using a cookie.” Once enabled, Matomo will place a matomo_ignore cookie in that browser and your future visits will no longer be tracked.
This is particularly useful if your IP address changes or you regularly work from different locations. Keep in mind that the cookie is browser-specific, so you would need to set it separately on any other browsers or devices you use.
Alternatively, if you have a static IP address, Matomo allows you to exclude a specific IP address, IP range, or CIDR range under Administration > Websites > Settings. This can be useful for excluding traffic from an office or internal network.
There are also more advanced options, including excluding particular User-Agent strings or modifying your tracking implementation so that specific users aren’t tracked.
You can find all of the available methods in our guide here:
One thing to note is that these exclusions apply going forward. They won’t automatically remove your previous visits from historical reports.