Whenever i do some edits on my page i’ve noticed if i check sessions that one particular place seems to show up which is a place called council bluffs in iowa, today i was doing some edits and that same place is listed with 30 sessions, i find it quite suspicious, can anyone tell me why this is because a day without edits i don’t see this place appear in sessions.
2 Likes
Council Bluffs Iowa is a popular one on analytics because that is the region Shopify servers and content delivery networks pass traffic through When you are making edition to your theme or previewing a change those requests can be registered as a session This is not anything sketchy rather server side activity and not legitimate customer visits. I hope this helps.
1 Like
Hi there,
What you’re seeing from Council Bluffs, Iowa is most likely not a real person visiting your store. Shopify servers and crawlers (including Googlebot) often show up as sessions from that location when you make theme or page edits, because the system is re-scanning your storefront to reflect changes.
That’s why you notice it spike when you edit, but not on days when no edits are made. It’s nothing to worry about — just background system traffic rather than suspicious activity.
This is a particular topic that seems to come up a lot, and hardly anyone addresses it as it is. Don’t worry, it’s not suspicious or malicious. It’s just bots. The good bots. We all have this. Will it mess up your analytics a bit? Yeah, but eventually you’ll be editing less and they’re won’t be as many sessions from Council Bluffs and Ashburn. Just disregard it. Cheers.
Hi @retrodesire
Council Bluffs, Iowa is a common location for analytics because it’s where Shopify’s servers and content delivery network route traffic through. When you make changes to your theme or preview them, those requests can be logged as sessions. This is completely normal and not suspicious at all—it’s just server-side activity, not legitimate customer visits. Hope this clarifies things!
Best,
Felix