Agreed! The same thing is happening to our website with this traffic. It impossible to get great support from Shopify like the first five years of working on their platform.
I guess I’ll pull this traffic and block from my Google Analytics account.
Topic summary
Multiple Shopify store owners report daily visits from Council Bluffs, Iowa appearing in their analytics, with some receiving 3-40+ visits per day over several months. The mystery was solved: these visits come from Shopify’s automated Speed Report, which uses Google’s data center in Council Bluffs to test three pages daily (homepage, popular collection page, and popular product page) using Google Developer tools.
Key concerns raised:
- Analytics distortion, particularly problematic for smaller stores where these visits significantly skew conversion rates and traffic metrics
- Shopify support reportedly unable or unwilling to disable the feature
- Some users report correlation between high Council Bluffs visits and decreased sales, though causation is unclear
Available solutions:
- Filter out Council Bluffs visits in Shopify Analytics reports by setting “Session City” to “is not Council Bluffs” and saving custom reports
- Exclude these visits in Google Analytics
- Contact Shopify to request the feature be disabled (though success appears limited)
Status: The discussion remains open with no official resolution. Users express frustration that Shopify doesn’t offer opt-out controls or allow store owners to choose testing frequency (manual, daily, weekly, monthly, or annual options requested).
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