Why am i seeing google.inc in analytics as direct traffic? Bug?
-
Recently i have seen two clients sites see a spike in direct traffic coming from google.inc. Is this a bot/bug which i should filter out. Just a bit confused why google.inc has visited our clients site 676 times!
Any insight would be great.
-
I have recently (in the last week) followed Carlos' OHow article on removing fake crawler and ghost referral traffic to help produce clean data. It is a great blog post and helped a lot.
Second to this, I was over on SEO Round Table earlier, apparently according to a Google hangout from John Mueller the Google Analytics team are aware of referral spam as an issue. Hopefully in the long run they will get on top of this issue.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-referrer-spam-20394.html
In the mean time Carlos' article below will help you set up filters and htaccess blocking of crawlers etc.
-
You can see in this image the network used by free-buttons and the amount of fake direct visits it leaves http://i.imgur.com/Kx4PD15.png . They started in middle May when the problem with fake direct visits began.
Campaign Source is the right way to exclude the referral. However, it won't stop the fake direct visits that free-buttons (and maybe others) leave. Ghost spam has changed, I have seen it in different forms referral (the most common), organic, events and the most confusing direct visits.
Another disadvantage of the Campaign Source solution is that everytime a new spam shows up you have to add to a filter, and by the time you add it you already have hits.
That's why I recommend the other solution with valid hostnames since ONE filter will prevent all ghost spam in any form.
Hope it helps,
-
Custom filter - Filter field- Campaign Source with a Regex filter pattern
-
What method are you using to filter free-social-buttons and the rest of the spam?
-
Hi Carlos,
Thanks for your response.I have already filtered out all the dodgy spam such as free-social-buttons. So it is not that. I have also checked my last few days and I have not had another visit from google inc. It seems like it just appeared for a month and has disappeared.
Just need to know if it is spam or not. Has anyone else seen direct visits come from google inc.?
-
If the hostname is "not set" or a fake one then is ghost spam most likely, if you check your referrals you will probably see free-social-buttons(might be others) this one I noticed that hits with fake direct visits along with the referral spam.
Conventional methods of stopping the spam like excluding the referral won't have any effect in the direct visit. To take care of all ghost spam, you should use a filter based on your hostname.
You can find more information on this related question
Hope it helps,
-
I have checked under Technology - Network and this is where it shows google.inc. Viewing under All Traffic-Channels and adding second dimension it does show not set. I have checked the source and medium and it says (direct)/(none).
-
Have you also checked the medium and campaign parameters for this source? It could be that somebody is just messing with you and as you can use UTM to mess up every traffic source.
-
Hi Blue, in which dimension you are seeing google.inc? If you choose hostname as a second dimension do you see "not set"?
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
-
Google Analytics reporting traffic for 404 pages
Hi guys, Unique issue with google analytics reporting for one of our sites. GA is reporting sessions for 404 pages (landing pages, organic traffic) e.g. for this page: http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php the page is currently a 404 page but GA (see screenshot) is reporting organic traffic (to the landing page). Does anyone know any reasons why this is happening? Cheers. http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php GK0zDzj.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | jayoliverwright2 -
Does Google Analytics track conversions in real time?
Looking at the section: Conversions > Goals > Overview - does Google Analytics provide real time / same day metrics for this conversion data or does it take 24 hrs?
Reporting & Analytics | | Rich_Coffman0 -
What's the problem with this code for Google Analytics
Hello, I'm using this code in my thank you page to track ecommerce sales in GA. The problem that I'm having is that in the google event the _trackPageview doesn't register the proper page but puts the url of the ecommerce website. The transaction is properly tracked. Any ideas of what could be the issue looking at this code? Maybe there could be other code could be causing the problem? Thanks a lot.
Reporting & Analytics | | nagar0 -
Google Analytics - Still Seeing Keyword Data
Hi, I hope you can answer this question for me, obviously I'm aware of the changes regarding "not provided" in analytics however I am still getting keyword referral data in analytics (not much of course!) in the section Acquisition>Keyword>Organic Can anybody explain why I am still seeing organic keyword data even up until yesterday for the odd term? I cannot find an answer anywhere!!! Many thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | splendidapple1 -
Number of clicks / organic traffic - different data in Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
Hi. I have a little problem. When I open Google Webmaster Tools I see 3000 clicks (in Traffic - Search queries - Clicks). But when I open Google Analytics I see much more visits from search engine (Google) - it´s 4-5 times more! It´s a huge difference, don´t you think? Do you know, where is the problem? What causes this diffence? thanks a lot
Reporting & Analytics | | mysho0 -
Mobile Site on Google Analytics
Hi mozzers, We just launched a mobile site and I was wondering what are the main steps to follow for gettting your mobile site tracked via GA (m.example.com)? We have a profile for www.example.com GATC: javascript or PHP to install? Should the profile be on a subdomain? What else to consider when implementing a mobile site on GA? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Switching Google Analytics from Urchin to GA
I want to finally make the switch from Urchin to GA in Analytics, but the Google support page is no longer working (I realize I'm late to this so they likely took it down/moved it to where I can't find it). I've been searching on Google but can't find a straightforward guide to changing that won't disrupt my data. Anyone have a link to a working guide, or can you provide some guidance?
Reporting & Analytics | | Axios_Systems0