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