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Removing Unwanted Transactions

Why Remove Ad-Servers and Click-Trackers

We get a lot of questions about load testing websites that include 3rd-party components like advertisements and user tracking. For most users, we recommend leaving these out of the load test entirely.

Here's why.

Advantages of Including Third-Party Services

  1. The entire system is load tested - including these third-party systems
  2. The test is more realistic because it does more of what a real user would do

That first point seems compelling. Surely a thorough test should measure the capabilities of these important 3rd-party services, right?

Disadvantages of Including Third-Party Services

Not necessarily. There are several reasons including them may be counterproductive, depending on your situation:

  1. Results may not be useful: Since you don't control these systems (and you're testing a live system), there's little reason to believe that performance witnessed during the load test won't change day to day (or minute to minute) as the 3rd-party system experiences traffic changes due to their other customers or changes to their system.

  2. Results may not be actionable: There's little you can do to improve the performance of third-party systems you don't control.

  3. Page render time vs. total page load time: If your page architecture has been well-optimized, then the end-user should not experience noticeable changes in page render time (when enough of the page is visible for the user to start interacting) even when these 3rd-party systems are slow. Most load-testing tools (including ours) measure total page load time, not page render time, so in many cases the tests will better reflect reality when these 3rd-party servers are excluded.

  4. Inflated user-tracking metrics: The user-tracking metrics collected for your site could be affected by the load tests, artificially inflating visit rates.

  5. Ad fraud detection triggered: If the ad vendors are paying for each impression on your site, fraud-detection algorithms may be triggered by the load test, possibly resulting in actions that could interrupt ad revenue for the site.

  6. Much harder to configure: Test cases are typically much harder to configure when third-party services are included. This is not unique to our product; all load testing tools require additional work to handle these cases.

How to Remove Third-Party Services (Transaction Blocking)

If you agree, the next question is how to keep these services out of your load test.

Use Transaction Blocking during recording:

  1. Open Preferences: Window → Preferences
  2. Navigate to: Web Performance → Recording → Transaction Blocking
  3. Click: Add Host button
  4. Enter hostname to block: e.g., doubleclick.net
  5. Use wildcards for multiple subdomains:
  6. .adsrus.com blocks server1.adsrus.com, server2.adsrus.com, etc.
  7. Click: OK

After entering these hosts, record your test case and you'll find that requests to blocked hosts have been automatically left out of the test case.

Common Ad-Servers to Block

Common third-party services to block:

  • .doubleclick.net (Google Ads)
  • .googlesyndication.com (Google AdSense)
  • .googleadservices.com (Google Ad Services)
  • .facebook.net (Facebook tracking)
  • .scorecardresearch.com (Analytics)
  • .quantserve.com (Analytics)

Deleting URLs from Existing Test Cases

If you've already recorded a test case and want to remove specific transactions:

Method 1: Delete Transactions Individually

  1. Select the transaction in Test Case Editor
  2. Right-click → Delete
  3. Confirm deletion

Method 2: Delete Multiple Transactions

  1. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on macOS) and click each transaction you want to delete
  2. Right-click → Delete
  3. Confirm deletion

Delete Carefully

Only delete transactions that are truly unnecessary (ads, trackers, analytics). Deleting transactions that the application depends on (JavaScript libraries, CSS files, API calls) will cause replay failures.

Removing all static resources at once

To strip out every CSS, JavaScript, image, and font request in a single action rather than deleting them by hand, see Stripping Static Resources.

Best Practice: Block Third-Party Services During Recording

Why: Easier to configure test cases without ad-servers and analytics. Cleaner recordings focus on your application's performance.

How: Configure Transaction Blocking (Window → Preferences → Recording → Transaction Blocking) before recording.

Best Practice: Keep Deleted Transactions in a Backup Test Case

Why: If you delete transactions and later realize you need them, recovering them from a backup is easier than re-recording.

How: Before deleting transactions, duplicate the test case (right-click → Duplicate) for backup.