So ...

Go to Audience => Technology => Network ...

Now you need to select "Hostname" as primary dimension and to expand the results to "Monthly" ...

If you are lucky enough (as I am), you won't see any strange URLs there ... Only your(s) ...

But there are chances to see a list of hostnames with many spam hostnames in the list.

If so, here is what you need to do ...

You need to note down all the valid hostnames for YOUR website. For example, www.yourdomain.com, yourdomain.com, subdomain.yourdomain.com ...

Now that you have all your valid hostnames sending, the next step is to create a filter that only includes the valid host names.

Select the "Admin" view from the left-side menu bar and click on "Filters" ...

This will bring you to the filter screen, where you need to click the "ADD FILTER" button to get started:

Now you need to select "Custom" as your filter type and then click on the "Include" radio button:

Now you are ready to create the actual filter.

First of all, give it a name ... for example "Hostname Filter".

Now you need to define the list. I am going to use so-called Regex string for that. Relax, you don't need to understand the whole principle, just follow my lead ...

The format is very simple:

  • you will add a ^ sign before each hostname
  • a $ sign after
  • and a | sign to separate the hostnames

So your Regex list should look like this:

^yourdomain.com$|^subdomain.yourdomain.com$|^anothersubdomain.yourdomain.com$

If you don't have any subdomains, you'll have a simple:

yourdomain.com

And here's the newly defined filter:

Finally, click on the save button to apply the filter.

And that's it. You're done!

Note: you'll have to give it at least 24-48 hours before you can notice any changes in your Google Analytics reporting.

TIP

Similarly, you can create a targeted filter to block any commonly known spammer site.

Here's a useful list:

https://github.com/rolandinsh/wp_referrer_spam_blacklist/blo...

All you have to do is to create a new filter select "Exclude" (this time is NOT "Include"!!) as the filter type and defining a filter pattern that contains the hostnames of the common referral spammers in the following format:

onedomain\.com|anotherdomain\.com|anotherdomain\.com

As you can see, is really easy to block all those nasty referrer spammers ...

And that's it my friends!

If you have any comments, further questions or update requests please don't hesitate to react! Like, comment and share!

And don't forget, you can easily come back to this tutorial whenever you want.

All you need to do is to bookmark the categorized, daily updated register of my blogs and training materials. Here it is:

Posts and training by smartketeer

Thanks for your time!



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rubanzema Premium Plus
Thank you for sharing.
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smartketeer Premium
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
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
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
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
Thanks for the clarification!
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smartketeer Premium
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
Thanks for your time and your feedback Janelle!
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jlclayton1 Premium
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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