Filtering out internal traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) involves identifying and excluding data generated by your own team accessing your website, ensuring your analytics accurately reflect genuine customer behaviour. This is achieved primarily through defining internal traffic based on IP addresses, and now includes more sophisticated methods leveraging user IDs and custom dimensions.
As of December 2025, GA4 offers several mechanisms. The most common is creating an ‘Internal Traffic’ definition within the Data Settings section. You can define internal traffic by entering static IP addresses – crucial for Australian businesses with fixed office IPs. GA4 now includes the ability to define ranges of IP addresses, accommodating businesses with dynamic IP allocations. Furthermore, you can now use User IDs (if implemented) or custom dimensions to identify internal users. GA4 automatically applies these filters to historical and incoming data. Data collection settings allow you to choose whether to filter data at collection time (preventing it from being stored) or to filter it in reports only. Google Cloud Australia region availability ensures data residency compliance for Australian businesses. The GA4 Data Retention settings, currently configurable up to 14 months, apply to both filtered and unfiltered data.
Ultimately, GA4 filters internal traffic by identifying specific user characteristics and excluding their activity from your core website analytics reporting.
