Organic Traffic from irrelevant keywords in GA?
-
Hi,
I am doing SEO for a website that deals in 4-wheeler tyres. While reviewing the organic traffic in Google Analytics, i noticed some keywords that are completely irrelevant to the theme of the website. Some are porn related terms while some are like google, yahoo, laptops, youtube etc. It seems someone is doing negative SEO for my website, as a result of which a decent number of searches are coming from these irrelevant terms. What should i do to block traffic from such terms as this may harm my website's performance in search engines.
Please suggest a solution as soon as possible.
-
I did a deep dive analysis of this organic traffic from irrelevant keywords again and came to a conclusion that it is coming from a particular Internet Service Provider(ISP) and that too from a particular location only. In-order to explore more in detail, i monitor real time data in Google Analytics for organic traffic in that particular location and i found the same (screenshot attached). As a preventive measure, i have implemented a filter in the GA profile by excluding searches from that Internet Service Provider in GA reports. But this does not seems to be a permanent solution to this issue.
Can anyone suggest a solution to fix this issue permanently?
-
I see - I believe the hostname can be overridden by using the setDomainName function in the GA snippet, so that may be what's going on. WHY someone would go through the trouble, I don't know.
I would suggest posting this issue in the Google Products forum on Google Analytics, where you may be able to get some attention from someone inside Google who may have seen this problem before and have suggestions on how to handle it.
I highly doubt this is hurting your search engine rankings in any way - none of the offending content is in place on your website. It is much more likely that this is the result of someone scraping/republishing your site content and grabbing your GA code with it.
-
Hi Mike,
I selected the "secondary variable" option in the organic search report and enter "Hostname" as the variable in Google Analytics account. However, it is displaying my website's URL only for all relevant as well as irrelevant keywords.
-
http://reverseinternet.com/analytics/5670334 is showing that GA code being used on 4 domains. 2 have apollo in the name and redirect to the main site. A random 4th one called deltapoint24.com doesn't appear to have the GA code on the homepage, and throws a 404 when you add /india/ to the url.
I would also check the hostname as Mike suggested.
-
If I'm not mistaken, I believe you can simply select the "secondary variable" option in the organic search report and enter "Hostname" as the variable - which will display the root of the relative page URL for each keyword, uncovering what domain that traffic is hitting. I've used this in the past for similar GA profile issues across root/sub domains. Might be worth a shot.
-
Hello PFX111,
I checked the source code of the page, as well as the text-only version, and source code of the cached page in Google/Bing/Yahoo serps. I did not see any questionable content. If they are hacking and cloaking they're doing a darn good job of it, but I don't think that's it. Like everyone else, my first reaction was to say you were hacked, but the site appears in the SERPs without any message from Google about it being harmful to your computer, and I see no evidence that this spammy content appears on the page even when Google views the site.
Here are my two thoughts at this point:
1. It could be referral spam.
2. Someone else could be using your Google Analytics account code (it looks like UA-######-#) on their site.
In both cases you would see the keywords in Google Analytics but not Google Webmaster Tools. You can set up a new profile in Google Analtics and set it to track the domain (instead of just the relative path), which could bring up other domains if they are using your Analytics code. See this page for details on how to do that:
-
Hi,
The domain name and the landing page is http://www.apollotyres.com/india/. I have attached few screenshots of the GA account highlighting the irrelevant keywords driving organic traffic to the website. Kindly have a look at it and suggest a solution to overcome this issue.
wtlA8yr,zYn8n55,c5emIW7#0 wtlA8yr,zYn8n55,c5emIW7#1 wtlA8yr,zYn8n55,c5emIW7#2
-
PFX111,
Please provide the domain if you could. This will make it much easier for us to help you.
I seriously doubt this is a result of someone doing "negative SEO" but could not say for sure unless I can look at it myself. One thing I'd like to know is the landing page URL where these terms are sending visitors on your site from the SERPs.
-
Hi Sorina,
Thanks for your response. I did check the keywords in Google Webmaster Tools under Optimization---->Content Keywords, but i could not find any such term, which was appearing in Google Analytics. Also, i did review 200 URLs and still could not find anything related to those keywords on my website. The browser message "this website may harm your computer" is also not showing up in search results. These searches are coming from a particular city only. What should i do now to overcome this issue?
-
Irving,
I personally saw this happen on a website - it was hacked, but no malware was placed on it. So the browser message "this website may harm your computer" was not showing up, and no massage was displayed in WMT under Malware.
These are some blackhat SEO hacks, where they alter the content of a website and place links to porn/gambling without the intention to get the website flagged for malware. The hackers just want to get good links to their shallow websites, not to knock these websites out of Google.
-
If it's showing as organic traffic then it's people clicking on those links not links on your site from hacking. You would also see your site disappear from the serps and/or get the message that says "this website may harm your computer". But check your source code just to make sure the site is clean and look in WMT under MALWARE to see if there is any malware on your site.
Look at your external links and see what is going on asap, this can knock your site out.
-
Are you sure it is negative SEO or is your site actually containing these keywords?
Your website may contain that keywords if you were hacked.Go to Google Webmaster Tools and check if there, under Optimization -> Content Keywords these strange keywords appear. If they do, check your website'c source code, someone may have injected strange text/links in your code.
As for Negative SEO use opensiteexplorer.org to find those bad links and use the Disavowal Tool to block them.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain Transition: Moving over paid traffic campaigns first
We're planning a domain name (rebrand) transition, and considering our options. We rely heavily on paid traffic. To reduce risk, we’re considering moving AdWords and Bing Ads over campaign-by-campaign to the new domain first, while organic traffic continues to direct to the old domain. Each of our ad groups has a custom, noindex’d landing page. In order to serve paid traffic, we’d at minimum need a front page, and likely a privacy policy page in addition. Here’s a rough outline of what I think a transition like this might look like: Launch new domain with a simple front page, and privacy policy. Move over ppc landing pages on the new domain (noindex'd, robots.txt) Create new ads in existing ad groups directing to the new domain. Monitor ad groups for some time period to verify sustainability. Once we're satisfied with ppc performance, and planned the rest of the organic page migrations, 301 redirect everything to the new domain. Is there any problems or things we should be concerned about with this approach? I'd think it should be fine, but I've been bitten enough from large-scale redirects in the past, that I know I should be nervous.
Branding | | dsbud0 -
Negative Keywords for SEO
Hi Mozzers, I have a client that has a totally legit retail business and they are getting lots of traffic organically that is adult in nature and totally off subject. The reason for this is their domain name contains keywords which while work well for their brand, when reordered and couple with a another keyword (such as picture or image) they get traffic for searches that have nothing to do with them and are pretty awful in nature. If this was Adwords I'd add a negative in of course but how can I stop bad traffic coming to the site organically? Any ideas? Cheers B 🙂
Branding | | Bush_JSM0 -
.org EMD - worth it or should we go with a lesser keyworded .com
Hello, A client of mine really wants to go with a 3 keyword EMD .org kw1kw2kw3.org The other option is to buy a non EMD .com with 2 of the keywords in it. I am leaning towards the .com, I don't think .org's are very professional, and EMDs seem to be going out of style, but please give your honest opinion now and what will happen in the coming years. Thanks
Branding | | BobGW0 -
If I bid on my brand name, will it make the keyword more expensive for my competitors
Our brand name is being bid on by out competitors. If we bid on our own brand name, for which we rank #1 for all our profiles and website, will we make our competitors cost per click higher?
Branding | | Catherine_Selectaglaze0 -
Is it OK to choose a Domain Name with Brand-name followed by keyword?
My client has a website (brandname.co.in) The website is popular in India (we show up 1st in SERP for our brand name as the search query in Google India) but results are different in Google US, Actually we are not even in the top 10 results in the US version of Google SERP. The Domain name (brandname**.com**) is already taken by another person and he isn't using the domain but expects around $100000 for selling the domain. So we are only left with the option of buying another domain name. My client provides business intelligence consulting services/solutions. What I would like to know is can I recommend buying (brandname-bianalytics.com)? Would this be treated as keyword stuffing? Is there a possibility that my website be penalized by EDM algorithm updates for my primary keyword(bi analytics)? Please advise.
Branding | | PaulineRose0 -
Is there any downside to have a product name (branded keyword) that has a top keyword in it?
The company I work for recently purchased another company. We are currently re-branding their product into our solution offering and are working on coming up with a new product name, while keeping SEO in mind. The product names that we are thinking of also includes a non-branded keyword that we actively look to rank for. We currently rank relatively high for this keyword. Is there any negative to having a product name that has a non-branded keyword in it. My first thought is that it is great because that non-branded keyword will be used repeatedly on our site when we mention the product. Things that I don't know though are: will it appear we are keyword stuffing does Google recognize that its a branded keyword and doesn't rank us for the non-branded aspect Any feedback or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Vince
Branding | | IFSNA0 -
Tracking traffic referrals between 2 sites we own?
I'm working on two sites, with seperate Google Analytics, both referring to each other. Am I able to easily find out which keywords/pages referrals are being generated from each site? e.g. http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk - targets home consumers, and refers trade enquires to... http://www.seedpotatomerchants.co.uk - which targets bulk orders, and refers home growers back to jbaseedpotatoes. Question is, how can we track which keywords/pages are sending traffic between each site, quickly? Is it simply a case of trawling through each site's analytics to find out, or does anyone have any tips? Ultimately, we'd like to find out which keywords & pages are picking up traffic from the wrong target audiences. Thanks
Branding | | JamesMio0 -
Reputation Management and Keyword Choice
I am assisting a company with reputation management. While we know we must use our brand name plus a modifier (or many different modifiers) within our numerous company owned blogs, websites as well as within press releases, blog entries, and article topics - so that we can hopefully get all of our sites to push out the negative ones for the use of our name - the question is whether to simultaneously compete for popular keyword terms to gain more secondary traffic that may not be looking for our company name but product? If getting more hits on our sites helps our rankings, then would it be worth targeting specific key phrases? Or, should we just focus on our brand name only at this point? Thanks, Pamela Ravenwood SEO Essential Solutions
Branding | | seoessentials0