Task Library
Confirms the GA4 property is correctly installed and excludes the owner's and team's own visits, so audit and campaign data reflect real visitors only.
Category: Website QA Audit
Use this when running Layer 1 (Digital Plumbing Checks) of the Website QA Audit – owner and VA visits inflate every metric if they aren't filtered out.
Inputs
- GA4 admin access for the property tied to the site
- The site URL and the office/home IP addresses of the owner and team (whatismyip lookup)
- Google Tag Assistant to confirm the GA4 tag fires
- The audit report/spreadsheet for logging results
Steps
- In GA4 Admin → Data Streams, confirm exactly one web stream exists for the live domain and the Measurement ID matches what fires on the site (check with Tag Assistant).
- In Admin → Data Settings → Data Filters, open the Internal Traffic filter and confirm its state is Active – not Testing or inactive.
- In Admin → Data Streams → Configure Tag Settings → Define Internal Traffic, confirm the rule lists the owner's and team's current IP addresses.
- Test it: browse the site from an internal IP, then check GA4 Realtime – the visit must NOT appear (or appears only with the internal traffic_type while the filter is in Testing).
- Browse from an external connection (phone on cellular) and confirm that visit DOES appear in Realtime.
- Log filter state, IPs covered, and both test outcomes in the audit report.
Definition of done (QA checklist)
- GA4 tag fires site-wide with the correct Measurement ID for one (and only one) web stream
- Internal Traffic data filter is Active and covers all known internal IPs
- Internal test visit excluded and external test visit recorded in Realtime, evidence logged and linked back to /website-qa-audit
Example(s)
- Example needed – run the Meta-Article Prompt after first real run.
File in the zip: skills/website-qa-audit/verify-ga4-configured-with-internal-traffic-filtered.md. Download the Task Library zip.
Index: Task Library. Article guidelines.