The Guide From Semalt: How To Remove Referral Spam From Google Analytics

23.05.2018

The Guide From Semalt: How To Remove Referral Spam From Google Analytics

Masquerading of referral spam as legitimate website visitors have compromised the reports made by Google Analytics. At some point, Google was looking at the matter, without coming up with a certain solution.

The current problem is that people do not know what referral spam is, how to spot it, and how to get rid of it. It poses a signi cant risk to business when they begin using inaccurate reports to determine their marketing campaigns for increased conversion rates, decision optimization, landing page optimization, and much more. In some cases, marketers continue to present data to their bosses, which could be off the mark by up to 60 percent.

Alexander Peresunko, the expert of Semalt explains what is referral spam, how to identify it, what are the ways of elimination of referral spam from Google Analytics reports, and how to prevent this situation from reoccurring.

Referral Spam Some of the spam never actually gets to visit the site and is commonly referred to as “Ghost� spam. However, it still appears in the reports as legitimate traf c which impacts bounce rates, conversion, time on site, and total sessions among others. A major business, which records many sessions may not view this as a signi cant problem. For smaller rms, however, it is a reason to worry. It can account for over 60% of the daily sessions this affecting monthly reporting, A/B testing, and other conversion rate tests.

The reason why this data does not visit the website but shows up in GA is due to the Measurement Protocol, developed by Google. It tracks customer behaviors from of ine data sources and directs it to Google Analytics. https://rankexperience.com/articles/article1048.html

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However, it opens doors to crafty spammers who force raw data by attacking UA tracking codes, thus bypassing the website.

Identifying Referral Spam The are very many ways to identify referral spam, but the quickest one is through the "Acquisition" tab to view "All traf c", and then the source/medium. If one does not immediately recognize a spammy site, pasting the URL in the browser should con rm all doubt. However, some spammers have gotten more sophisticated, so looking at the bounce rates, pages/session, and new session metrics is also a good idea. If they are at 100%, then this traf c does not visit the site.

Removing Fake Tra c from Google Analytics The suggested procedure works 100% of the time on both old and new accounts. The only catch is that it requires regular updates since new domains keep popping up. There is no permanent x, maybe until Google provides one.

Getting Started Create a copy of the existing view which should remain untouched and un ltered as a safety measure in case the lters lter legitimate data. The lters block all future traf c known to contain referral spam. For the rst lter, click on Admin, select the Filtered view, and insert a preferred name for the lter since it may require several. One must then select Exclude, and choose Campaign Source. The Filter Pattern is where the lter string goes.

Cleaning Old Google Analytics Reports One may also remove spam from the historical reports using a single custom segment. Follow these steps: click on Acquisition, All Traf c, Source/Medium. Once there, click Add Segment, and +New Segment. After completion of the relevant inputs, click save.

Taking the Fight to the Spammers There is nothing that affects an A/B site more than inaccurate reporting. It is not until Google releases a de nitive solution to the problem raised by referral spam. Currently, the procedures indicated above serve as the best guides to ensuring that Google Analytics has no referral spam.

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