Obviously, the very first requirement is to have a secure hosting platform and is always a good idea to use a reliable security plugin too ...

Usually, a good security plugin not only protects your website against malware and trojans, it also blocks referrer spam.

If you don't have a dedicated security plugin that can handle these issues, you'll have to find a way to solve the problem ...

And there are two ways ...

Method #1: blocking referrer spam in WordPress using a plugin

As you can guess, there are several WordPress plugins that can help you keep referrer spam to a bare minimum.

Usually, these plugins use web services that are actively monitoring referral spam websites and use that list to block referral spam.

I recommend you WP Referrer Spam Blacklist for two reasons ...

First of all: is pulling it’s 500+ blacklist from the community-contributed list of referrer spammers maintained by Piwik, a leading open source web analytics platform.

Second: there is no need for configuration. The plugin runs in background redirecting the referral spammer to a blank page.

In other words, all you have to do, is to install and activate the plugin, and you're done.

Here it is:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-referrer-spam-blacklist/

OK. Let's move forward to see the second method ...

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rubanzema Premium Plus
Thank you for sharing.
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smartketeer Premium
@rubanzema
Thanks for your time!
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RubenV1 Premium
smartketeer,Thank you. I went as far as adding a filter. I did not add the exclude filter because I was not sure if I have to do each on that long list (500 or more) individually.

Also today I deactivated G+ from my "Sociable" list in WordPress because I kept getting Warnings from google that I was spamming each time I wrote a post and hit the G+ to post it to Google+ I surely don't want them to cancel my google account. I have had it for many years. If you have any thoughts on that subject I would appreciate it also!

Great training.
Ruben
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smartketeer Premium
@RubenV1
If you want to create an exclude filter, is recommended to add as many sites as you can. That's the point ...

If you were posting content containing links with the orogonal WA domain included, G+ will consider it as spam (due to the huge number of shares)

If your linked content doesn't contain root WA links, is about your sharing frequency or other issues that could violate the G+ policy
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CandP Premium
Thanks, Zed. We haven't encountered this problem yet but we will now be on the lookout and implement your suggestions when we do.
Colette and Philip
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smartketeer Premium
@CandP
Hopefully you won't need it :)
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smokeywins Premium
Thanks for the great info! I am curious about the plugin you suggest. It shows it hasn't been updated in a year, should that be a cause for concern?
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smartketeer Premium
@smokeywins
No, the plugin is fine ...

Is stable and there are not too many features that would require an update. That's all. But of course, you can use any plugin you want Jennifer ...
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smokeywins Premium
@smartketeer
Thanks for the clarification!
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smartketeer Premium
@smokeywins
My pleasure!
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jlclayton1 Premium
I laughed when I went back to my email and saw this training because I have spent the last half hour creating exclude filters due to all the spam referrers showing up on my site!

Your training is terrific, and I'm implementing your methods right now--thank you!

Janelle
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smartketeer Premium
@jlclayton1
Thanks for your time and your feedback Janelle!
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jlclayton1 Premium
@Stella2
I had found that earlier and got it checked! Glad to hear that it cuts down on the bad referral traffic--my bounce rate over the last couple weeks has gone from around 10% to 90%. So I definitely needed to do something--Thank you!
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