I have the same challenge to unfold, in the past 30 days I had 84 visits from Council Bluffs 
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I have only had Shopify since April and site visits from Council Bluffs come daily. I donāt know why, either and would like to know.
I am so glad I am not the only person seeing this. I get 3 visits a day from Council Bluffs around 1am
Hi,
I have been doing some research and found out the cause, the Shopify Speed Report. You can find the topic here; https://community.shopify.com/c/Online-Store-Speed/Online-Store-Speed-Report/m-p/908894#M390
Shopify runs the speed report using a Google Developer tool (the Google data centre is based in Council Bluffs, USA) which tests 3 pages, Homepage, a popular collection page and a popular product page. Shopify then compares this result to other similar Shopify sites. This test is run daily!
For some sites this is not a problem, but for some smaller sites this can screw with your analytics and conversion rate metrics. If you get 3000 hits a day, 3 extra visits is not an issue - itās only 0.1%. Not every site is as big as that. My site is small and got tested twice today (15th Nov) for some reason. If you use Google Analytics you can exclude these visits from the report. I do not trust Google with my data as I have caught them doing things with my data before, and these visits are messing with the analytics in Shopify.
So if this feature is negatively affecting you, make sure to reach out to Shopify and ask them to turn it off.
Better yet ask them to give you, the store owner, the choice of when or if your site is tested. Manually, Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Annually.
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Thank you for all the great research on this topic. We did reach out to Shopify support and they told they would not turn it off at this time. We also do not have the option of changing how frequently it hits our site.
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Fantastic research. Thank you
Yes, I found out the same thing just yesterday, I asked them to remove the Testing from my store and they said that was not possible at this time . So I guess Iām stuck with it.
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I have raised this issue with Shopify support on live chat a few weeks ago, they did some testing and managed to replicate my results. They agreed that this is an issue and have put it on the development list.
If more people reach out to Shopify about this then it will become a higher priority for them to fix. Make sure you reach out to Shopify and let them know if this affects you and how you would like the speed test to work for you in the future.
My preference would be a setting that lets you choose when your site is tested. eg. manually, daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.
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Google has a data center in Council Bluffs Iowa. I didnt get these before i integrated, analytics, google ads, merchant center etc etc to the site. Its likely their system crawling websites using their services for listing etc purposes. Not fact or anything just a best guess. Could just be a lady living in a boot, surfing the web all day long 
yes, I have to manually filter Council Bluffs (and my dynamic IP address) to view the analytics honestly. It is frustrating that there is no way to set regular filters so I donāt have to do this 3 times a day
I wonder if EVERYONE using Shopify gets these council Bluff visits, or just certain shops. Do we all sell the same things? Or live in the same place? Just curiousā¦
I sell handmade sterling silver jewelry from Texas. Do any others?
Interesting questionā¦We are a small business selling scarves and headwear from the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Hi,
It happens to ALL Shopify stores as part of the Site Speed Test Report, regardless of where you are or what you sell.
If you go to Sales Channels > Online Store > Themes - under your live theme is the Online Store Speed.
Click the View Report button then click see how your store is calculated
This shows you the 3 pages that are tested by the speed report. Your homepage, a popular collection page and a popular product page. If you click View Insights it will show the pages tested which will match the Council Bluffs visits.
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Did you ever find out who this is? Or why they are doing it? It is also happening on my site as well and I didnāt add anything on my site recently for it to be going on I seem to get at the least 3 visits a day from them up to 9 or more. Itās crazy and makes me feel like someone trying to hack ?
Hi @NautiSailor ,
If you read further up the discussion itās all explained, itās Shopify doing it as part of the Site Speed Test.
I have been doing some research and found out the cause, the Shopify Speed Report. You can find the topic here; https://community.shopify.com/c/Online-Store-Speed/Online-Store-Speed-Report/m-p/908894#M390> > Shopify runs the speed report using a Google Developer tool (the Google data centre is based in Council Bluffs, USA) which tests 3 pages, Homepage, a popular collection page and a popular product page. Shopify then compares this result to other similar Shopify sites. This test is run daily!> > For some sites this is not a problem, but for some smaller sites this can screw with your analytics and conversion rate metrics. If you get 3000 hits a day, 3 extra visits is not an issue - itās only 0.1%. Not every site is as big as that. My site is small and got tested twice today (15th Nov) for some reason. If you use Google Analytics you can exclude these visits from the report. I do not trust Google with my data as I have caught them doing things with my data before, and these visits are messing with the analytics in Shopify.> > So if this feature is negatively affecting you, make sure to reach out to Shopify and ask them to turn it off.> > Better yet ask them to give you, the store owner, the choice of when or if your site is tested. Manually, Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Annually.
Itās not a hacker or anything like that, just annoying.
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Hi, I have 3 regular Daily visits from Council Bluffs! I have tried five different themes and it still stalks my store no fault. I have opened my store late September and it started mid November.
Yes same here! Since the first day I use Shopify
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Thank you for posting a legitimate explanation! Everyone should āLikeā your response to get it to the top.
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I also am receiving 3 visits a day from council bluffs Iowa. I found online that there is a Google data center located in that city and state I believe since 2007. So Iām wondering if it is Google that is visiting all of the Shopify sites maybe web crawling our pages in order to rank us on search results just a thought.
Nope! Its definitely the Shopify Speed Test. They use Googleās data centre in Council Bluffs to run the speed test.
If you read further up the post you will see it all explained that the 3 pages visited from Council Bluffs are the same 3 pages used by the Speed Test.
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