Why do I have so many sessions from out of my country?

[viktorstenehag]

Hello,

I am having a problem where I see I have a lot of sessions from outside of sweden. (which is the only place I sell).

I have 510 sessions from "Iowa, Council Bluffs" but not nearly as many from any city in sweden. (I have 41 from stockholm)

Does anyone know why this is? Thankful for any answers!

[GriffinGradke · Accepted solution]

Here is a link to a previous discussion explaining this.

https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/council-bluffs-visits/m-p/953848#M209517

Long story short, Shopify uses a google tool (Lighthouse maybe) to determine its Shopify speed score and the google data center is base in Council Bluffs, Iowa. These session details should be ignored. Would be nice to see Shopify automatically ignore these as to not pollute user data in the future.

[tomasg26]

If you're seeing visits from Council Bluffs in your Shopify analytics (likely from Shopify's speed testing using Google Developer tools), here's how to exclude them:

1. Go to the Analytics menu in Shopify, and you will see the dashboard with your reports.
2. Select any report that includes visits (e.g., Sessions over time, Sessions by location).
3. Apply a filter: Set Session City to "is not" Council Bluffs.
4. Save the report with a new name (e.g., "Sessions over time (No Council Bluffs)").
5. Replace the original report on the dashboard with the new filtered version to view accurate data.

Repeat this for all relevant reports, such as sessions, conversions, or landing pages. Leave sales-related reports unchanged. Your dashboard will now display only real-user sessions without the Council Bluffs data.