Get rid of referrer spam Google analytics
Hi guys,
Yesterday I asked a question about an issue I had with Google analytics linked with Sumome.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/everything-wordpre...
I have, what is called a referrer spam on my website. I had never heard of it before but it occurs when your website gets fake referral traffic from spam bots and this fake traffic is recorded by Google analytics.
I got aware of the issue when the analytics showed me a link that was the 3d most viewed link on my website but that had nothing to do with my website.
how.to.travel.and.make.money.online.for.free.with.maps.ilovevitaly.com
I had a lot of feedback from the community and they helped me understand what it was and apparently the 'I love Italy' spam is a well-known spam that affects a lot of websites.
I found a useful video on Youtube on how to get rid of this kind of referrer spam in Analytics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw3JrFt13jkI think it might be useful if you have the same issue, so I thought I'd share.This method can be used for any referrer spam of that type.
Hope this will be useful to you as it was for me :)
Have a nice Sunday and happy Valentine's day to everybody!
Angélique
Recent Comments
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Thanks for sharing this great information. Good to know in advance. Much appreciate. I bookmarked it. Cheers, Jeff
I recently added filters to block some spam referral thanks to help from a member here and I now have a much more realistic picture in GA. It's the same method as suggested in this Youtube video you mention here.
I came to the conclusion that this is something to worry about when I have a lot more REAL traffic coming to my site. Geoff
The problem is that you don't know which traffic is real and which is not when you have those spams mess up your report.
It's not really great finding out that a big part of the traffic you thought you had gained through hard work is actually ghost traffic....
The more traffic you get, the more difficult it will be to analyze and the more chance there is that these spams will already have spread.
I am checking out other ways and plugins to get rid of it once and for all, so I don't need to worry about it anymore in the future.
Not true. I can always tell which ones are spam. They have 2 things in common. 1. 100% bounce rate. 2. 00:00 minutes spent on your site. With my level of traffic, it's easy for me to distinguish them from real visitors. Once I'm getting say 100 visits a day, it'll be an issue I have to deal with. Geoff. Best of wishes.
I have been noticing this too since I started to get more into analyzing Google analytics. Never really went very deep into it before but I start to understand it better now.
Especially the traffic that comes from Russia. Almost all the traffic coming from there has a 100% bounce rate and 00.00 min and apparently that 'I love Italy spam' comes from Russia too so it makes sense.
Anyways, it's too much of a 'brain acher' for a Sunday ;)
Thanks for your input and have a nice day!
Lol. It's been that kind of a weekend for me. I'm plain worn out. From the initial page which is audience overview, look in the very bottom right corner. You'll see view full report. This will open the data, and you'll see who really visited your site. Hope this helps. Enjoy your Sunday. Geoff.
Thanks, Geoff.
It helps for sure. I added some filters to block the spam websites and I can see it blocked some traffic because my traffic went down yesterday.
Not a nice thing to see but at least, it reflects the 'real' traffic now :)
Oh yes, it is a royal pain in the ass! You may think you are getting loads of traffic and it is mostly referral spam. It really messes with your reporting :(
I hadn't heard of it before yesterday. Apparently it's a very common issue, so make sure to check it out because it messes completely with your results.
Struggling since then to get rid of it... I hope this method worked but I am not sure yet.
Thanks Angelique. I've had loads of referral spam too and it is very annoying.
I've followed training on Youtube and here to try and get rid of it in my Analytics but it hasn't worked. I'll check this video out tomorrow.
It's very annoying. There is also a plugin that is called bot block. I haven't tried it yet but if this method doesn't work I might give it a try
Oh interesting, I might give that a go because I have honestly tried so many times to block it within GA and no joy!
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Als PJ Germain talks about this. Blocking Referral Spam- HTAccess
Thanks! I will definitely check it out :)