By default, a referral automatically creates a new session. If a referral source is on the exclusion list, the traffic that comes to your site from the excluded domain doesn’t create a new session.
When collecting session data based on Google Analytics data in OWOX BI Pipeline, you can exclude referral traffic in Google Analytics interface. However, this list never affects your OWOX BI session collection based on the OWOX BI algorithm.
Starting today, you can make a list of referral traffic exclusions for collecting session data with the OWOX BI algorithm. Just like in Google Analytics, only with raw, non-sampled data!
Note:The referral exclusion list for the OWOX BI algorithm and the list you make up in Google Analytics don't affect each other. And if you already have such a list in GA, just copy it to OWOX BI.
Why you might need to exclude referrals
For processing payments. If a user needs to process payment using a third-party shopping cart while purchasing products at your site, adding the payment processor's domain to the exclusion list will prevent starting a new session once a user comes back to your site.
For accurate cross-subdomain tracking. If your site users need to move between several subdomains while interacting with your business, add your domain to the exclusion list, so user migration between your subdomains will be happening within a single session always when it should be a single session.
For fighting off referral spam. Referral spam is traffic sent by spam bots hiding behind different domain names and IP addresses. Such traffic is bad for your site metrics and indexing, as it increases the bounce rate and decreases the average session time on your site. Adding suspicious domains to the exclusion list, you'll filter out spam domains and will be able to get the tracking data that's relevant to your business.
How to add domains to the referral exclusion list
1. On your pipeline page, click Change settings:
2. Make sure session data collection is set to Based on hit data, then find Referral exclusion list and click the edit icon:
3. Type in or paste domain names as example.com. Use commas to separate them from one another. These domains won't be tracked as referrals and that won't start new sessions.
Note: The referral exclusion list uses CONTAINS matching. This means all subdomains containing the domain name will not be tracked as referrals. For example, if you exclude the example.com domain, the start.example.com subdomain will be excluded too.
4. Click Save list. The added domains will appear on the list.
You can delete the domains from the list using the Delete button to the right of the domain name:
To apply the deletion, click Save list.
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