There has been an increase of spam throughout Google Analytics that has prevented many users to track the accurate performance of their business. While Google has tried to prevent this spam, it is a constant target that has spammers finding new tactics to slip through the cracks.
Why you might want to block and filter these spam sites
There are two very important reasons why you will want to consider blocking these on your website. Firstly, this corrupts your Google Analytics data. If you have a smaller website, the majority of your referral traffic will most likely be from spam hits. This suppresses the remaining legitimate traffic and makes your marketing efforts and analysis a more difficult endeavor.
Second, this negatively impacts your server load and security. This means a slower load time of your website which can translate into a higher bounce rate and ultimately lower rankings. Not only that, while the spammers are bouncing through your site, they could be looking for any vulnerabilities including but not limited to WordPress plugins.
How to tell if you have Google Analytics spam
There are two telltale areas within your Google Analytics dashboard that have seen the latest wave of spam: Language and Referral Traffic.
1. Language – If you are viewing the Language under your Reporting Tab, there should acronyms such as “en-us” for English-United States, or “en-gb” for English-Great Britain. If you are seeing phrases such as “Secret.Google.com-Trump”
or “Google officially recommends o-o-8-o-o.com search shell!” then this immediately tells you that this is spam; as it does not specify any Language.
2. Referral Traffic – If you are looking under the Referral Traffic under Shortcuts, this can be a little harder to decipher as even some spammers have been using well-known, legitimate sites as spam. Websites such as Reddit.com or LifeHacker.com are examples of this. Easier websites to spot might be abc.xyz, or buketeg.xyz. that are clearly marked spam sites.
Once you’ve identified the spam, there are actions you can take to ensure that your data is protected and you are not gathering information from irrelevant traffic. If you have any questions on how to prevent and block spam from misconstruing your results, contact Tree Ring Digital today.