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
-
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 -
Google+ SERP Visibility For Non Branded Keywords
Hi, I've noticed that a competitors Google+ box is appearing on the right hand side of the Google UK SERPs for a non-branded keyword (open air balustrade). Please see attached image. I've always thought that the Google+ box would only be displayed in the SERPS for branded keywords. How is this Google+ box appearing for non-branded keywords? How can we improve our chances of our Google+ box being shown instead? Many thanks in advance, Lee. vDm914D
Branding | | Webpresence0 -
Marketing for a new alternative solution (general keywords) and for it to show up under specific keyword searches
Hi Moz Community! I've run into a marketing dilemma for one of our customers that we provide SEO and internet marketing services to. Therefore, I need the help of you clever people! The company is a high-tech innovative biotechnology company, so instead of using their product as an example which might be confusing, I will represent the problem with "DVDs" and a new technology similar to Netflix. Customer wants to buy 500 Days of Summer DVD online and isn't aware of the new technology called 'Netflix' where we can stream it online instead of ordering it online. Netflix marketing team wants their website to show up alongside search results so when people search for 'buy 500 Days of Summer DVD', you will see Amazon, blah blah and at some point also see 'Netflix: Stream Instantly Online!' What is the best way to approach this? Micro (macro) site? Can I target 'DVD' and make the microsite use a direct match? Do I have to create a page for every single popular DVD in order for it to effectively rank? Any other clever solutions to this problem? Thanks everyone! Sheldon
Branding | | swzhai0 -
Drop In Branded Traffic
Hi, We took on a new client in March. Over the last few months I have noticed that their Branded Organic Traffic has dropped off considerably, around 20%. On further investigation I discovered that the drop off occurred between Jan & Feb this year (prior to us taking over). In Jan they launched a new site, the drop off seems to coincide with the launch of their new website. I also found out that their Page Rank had disappeared before the launch of the new website, and is still a PR/na. My first thought was that they have been penalised. How likely is this on a very well known site which gets roughly 170K visits per month? Could the drop in Branded Traffic be due to a decrease in advertising budget elsewhere (to compensate for the cost of the new website, leading to less brand exposure)? Could it be that there are just fewer people searching for their Brand? I guess the questions I am trying to find out are: 1. What are the reasons for massive drops in Branded organic traffic? 2. As an seo I am tasked mainly for optimising for non-branded organic traffic, is there anything I can suggest to the client to help get this traffic back? 3. If it is an algorithmic penalty (Panda, Penguin), how do I know which one? I have started with their links and disavowed known toxic links, fixed crawl errors, optimised their top pages etc etc. If it was a penalty and I mange to fix it, will their branded traffic return? Any help with the above would be greatly appreciated. Jon
Branding | | JonRaubenheimer0 -
How hard is it for a national brand to win for Superlative qualified non-brand keywords?
Is it worth trying to target non-brand keywords with qualifiers like: best, top, good? Naturally review or comparison sites are built to target these keywords/searches, but can big brands compete in this landscape? Does anyone have any good examples?
Branding | | GSI0 -
Whar are the Keyword and Link Implications of renaming a Website
I'm about to change the name of a popular site classyauto.com to nationalvehicle.com. The reason for the name change is mainly because of the negative report on classyauto from years past. We've decided to rename the company to National Vehicle for that reason and other reasons. With that, the current site does not currently rank high for many of the natural organic niche keywords we want to target. But, it does have a good amount of links and traffic. I would like recommendations on the best method to rename the site including any ideas on what to do with existing directories, links, etc. efficiently and effectively. I would also like input on what NOT TO DO. Thanks in advance and any tools, tricks, or additional resources you can point me to would be greatly appreciated.
Branding | | JosephFrost0 -
How to increase traffic to forum?
Hi all. I help run the forum at www.bearsfansonline.com and really want to see if there any ways to increase traffic. We started with a core group of posters in 2009 and since then have only added one active user. I'm worried if we don't bring in some fresh faces, my core users will start to leave. That being said, does anyone have ideas how to go about doing this? We've tried holding contests but they haven't resulted in any new sign-ups. Don't really know what else we can do. I'd greatly appreciate any tips, suggestions, etc. Thanks in advance.
Branding | | Xee0 -
Value of Keyword Twitter and Facebook accounts
This is just a general discussion on your thoughts on the value of obtaining keyword Twitter & Facebook accounts ( especially if you have a brand name not connected to your primary keywords) For Example: What do you think the value/benifits are of obtaining accounts such as:
Branding | | James77
http://twitter.com/#!/keyword
http://facebook.com/keyword Thanks0