Set up GA4 so it stops counting you as a customer
Define your office IP as internal traffic, then switch the Internal Traffic data filter from Testing to Active. Set data retention to 14 months, mark your enquiry form as a key event and link Search Console.
The steps
- Define your office as internal traffic. Admin, Data streams, your web stream, Configure tag settings, Define internal traffic. Create a rule with the
traffic_typevalueinternaland your office IP address. - Switch the filter on. Admin, Data collection and modification, Data filters. Open Internal Traffic and change its state from Testing to Active. In Testing it checks your traffic but your reports still count you.
- Keep 14 months of data. Admin, Data collection and modification, Data retention. Change event data retention from 2 months to 14 months.
- Mark your enquiry form as a key event. The form needs an event first, for example
generate_leadfired on the thank-you page. Then Admin, Data display, Events, and mark it as a key event. Key events are what GA4 used to call conversions. - Link Search Console. Admin, Product links, Search Console links, Link. You then see the searches that brought people to your site.
Data retention only changes Explorations, not the standard reports, and it isn't backdated, so set it on day one.
The data filter only works on data collected after it's Active. It doesn't clean what GA4 has already recorded.
If you work from home, your broadband IP can change. Check the rule now and then, or add a rule for each address you work from.
The Search Console reports show up once the link is made and the Search Console collection is published in the Library.
Tested
: the screens in the video are mock-ups, not a live property, so no figures or IDs appear. The retention options (2 or 14 months on a standard property, applying to Explorations) were checked against Google's Data retention help page on 10 Nov 2026. The other steps follow the Google help pages below; they weren't run in a live property for this post.
Where this comes from
Every standard GA4 property has these settings. Google renamed conversions to key events in 2024. Sources: Filter out internal traffic, Data filters, Data retention, Mark events as key events, Connect Search Console to Google Analytics.
Transcript
Your GA4 is probably counting you as a customer. Here's the fix.
In Admin, define your office IP as internal traffic. Then go to Data filters and switch that filter from Testing to Active. That's the part people miss. In Testing, it filters nothing.
Data retention defaults to two months. Set it to fourteen.
Mark your enquiry form as a key event. That's what GA4 now calls conversions.
Then link Search Console to see the searches behind your visits.
Full checklist at blog dot elkdigital dot co dot uk.
On screen: mock-ups of the GA4 Admin screens for a property called "Your Website": the internal traffic rule with the IP 203.0.113.24 (an example address, not a real office), the Data filters list with Internal Traffic in Testing, the filter state switched to Active, the data retention dropdown changed from 2 months to 14 months, the star next to generate_lead in the Events list, and the Search Console links page. The screen sits in the top half and the presenter in the bottom half.
The presenter in the video is an AI avatar made in HeyGen, speaking with a clone of Jamie's voice. The script, demo and test were made by ELK Digital with Claude.