Search code examples
filtergoogle-analyticsdata-lossweb-traffic

Lost Channels Traffic after implementing custom Filter


In October 2013 I have created & implemented a filter for Organic Search which in result stopped showing my Channels traffic (Direct traffic, Referral traffic, Social traffic & Email traffic) and was showing only Organic Search data. I realized it on 2nd-June-2014 and removed that filter at 5pm. After that my traffic got increased by 39% to 40% week on week basis. I implemented this filter to extract (direct) / (none) data. The customized filter details are as follows:

Filter Name: Organic Filter

Filter Type: Custom Filter (Selected "Include" from radio button)

Filter Field: Campaign Medium

Filter Pattern: Organic

Case Sensitive: No

What I want to know is that, have I lost any data for last 8 months from October-2013 to May-2014? If yes, what are the reasons for the same and is there any possibility to recover that data? This will be very helpful for me.

Thanks in advance.


Solution

  • You have lost all data that is not from organic search. Filters are destructive, i.e. they throw away all data that is not matched by the filter. Since you have set up the filter to only include organic traffic all other traffic has been dismissed. The data is not recoverable (in fact Google warns in the filter documentation to alway create an unfiltered data view in case you accidentally delete data with your filters).