Influx of Referral Spam Traffic in Google Analytics?

Influx of Referral Spam Traffic in Google Analytics?

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Are you seeing a huge jump in your referral traffic as of late? Perhaps your engagement metrics are tanking as well?

If you’re not sure go take a look at your account. Are you seeing referral spam traffic like the ones listed in the picture on the right? Yep, that’s what it looks like.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Over the past few months everyone has been seeing an huge spike in referral spam sites hitting their reports. It’s not negatively impacting anything but your ability to accurately report how many people are actually visiting your site, and how they are interacting with it.

So, how do you stop it? Great question. The answer is simple and quick. There are 3 things you can do to remove these pesky referral spam sites from showing up in your Google Analytics reports moving forward. They are:

    1. Checking a box in the Admin section of Google Analytics
    2. Adding hostname filters to your Google Analytics account
    3. Disavowing the links using Google’s disavow tool

Let me walk you through each of the three items so you have a step-by-step guide.

New Referral Spam Checkbox in Google Analytics

Google Analytics has added a new checkbox inside your Admin panel that if checked will remove the spam bots Google knows about. There are no details yet on how often this will get updated, but my bet is that it will be updated often. Google does love clean data after all.

To find it:

    1. Login to your Google Analytics account.
    2. Select your web property.
    3. Click on “Admin” in the upper left menu.
    4. Under your “Filtered” account (you should have at least 2 – unfiltered and filtered) click on “View Settings,” which will appear in the far right column.
    5. Half way down the page you will see a new item called “Bot Filtering.” Click on that and hit save.

You’re done. It’s that easy.

Adding Hostname Filters in Google Analytics

Now we can move on to the more time consuming, yet simple, full proof method of removing these referral spam sites from your account. The nice thing is you’re already where you need to be within your Admin panel, so just click on the “Filters” tab on the left side menu.

Once there, you will just be adding new filters for each spam domain sending traffic to your site. Yes, it may take a few minutes to get through them all, but one time saving tip I have is to:

Download all your referral traffic from Google Analytics before you start. That way you can just copy and paste from Excel into this section.

OK, ready? Click on “Add New Filter” and let’s get started.

  1. I would recommend coming up with a uniform naming schema, so that you can quick identify them when you are scanning your filters. This will save you time in the future, I promise.
    Ex: = SPAM BOTS – [Insert Domain Name]Give your filter a name. 
  2. The filter type will be “Predefined” (which is automatically selected for you.
  3. Select “Exclude”
  4. Select “traffic to the hostname”
  5. Select “that contain”
  6. Now copy and paste your the spam domains from the Excel spreadsheet into the “Hostname” field.
  7. Click “Save” and you’re done.

Just repeat this for all the spam sites showing up in your referral traffic.

Adding Sites to the Disavow List

The last step is to add these spam domains to your disavow list via Google’s Disavow Tool.

Since I know you followed my timesaving tip and downloaded your referral sources from Google Analytics we can start there.

    1. Copy and paste the URLs you filtered out into a new Excel spreadsheet.
    2. In column B enter in this formula: =”domain:”&A1
      • This will automatically add “domain:” in front of your URL address.
    3. Drag the formula down Column B for as many URLs as you have in Column A
    4. Copy and paste Column B into whatever program you have for notes
    5. Save it down as a .txt file.
      • I would recommend the date to the name of the file so you have a reference point later on.
      • Ex: spam_referral_disavow_6_17_15.txt

Now we can go over to the Google Disavow Tool and upload the .txt file you just created

    1. Go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main
    2. You will need to select the correct domain you want to upload this file to.
      • This only comes into play if you have access to multiple Google Analytics/Webmaster Tools accounts.
    3. Click on the red button that says “Disavow links”
    4. A warning will pop up and you will need to click on “Disavow Links” again.
    5. When the new screen appears click on “Choose File” so you can upload your new .txt file.
    6. Once you’ve selected the .txt file the “Submit” button will turn blue and you will be able to click on it.
    7. After that click on “Done” and you’re done.

It’s just that simple.

Conclusion

I’m sure from time to time new spam sites will pop-up in your referral traffic. If they do, just follow this 3 step process again and you’ll be set.

As always if you have any questions or concerns, please leave me a comment in the comment box below. I’ll be regularly checking them and will be happy to respond as best I can.

About Andrea M. Fuller

With 15 years of experience in the technology industry, Andrea has worked with local and national non-profits and Fortune 500 companies. Over the years, she has worked for tech start-ups, CTIA-The Wireless Association, website development shops and Ketchum, before starting her own company in 2014.
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