Using Network Location In Google Analytics

December 15, 2008

Who is visiting your site?

When a visit is reported to GA, it includes the IP address.  GA doesn’t report the IP address (Google considers this Personally Identifiable Information so their privacy policy prohibits it), but it does look up who the IP Address belongs to.  Often you’ll find that the IP address of a visitor belongs to Comcast or Verizon or AT&T.  These are individuals like you and I who have their internet service with, you guessed it, Comcast or Verizon or AT&T.

These are probably the types of things in your Network Locations report.

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But organizations’ IP addresses sometimes resolve back to that organization instead of a generic ISP.  Dig a little deeper and you may find segments of traffic that are important to your site.

These are important segments for this particular organization.

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Where to find it:

In the GA reporting interface we can find it in the Visitor Reports under “Network Location.”

However, GA is inconsistent with the terminology for this in different locations. When creating a filter, it is called “Visitor ISP Organization.”

In Advanced Segments it is still called “Network Location,” but it’s under Systems instead of Visitors.

So there you have it, a quick look at Network Location and where to find it.

Now, go find out who is visiting your site.

John