Filter the Spam traffic

[Obbserv]

Hello everyone,

We have to filter traffic from spam website like

1. webcrawler.com
2. semalt.com
3. social-button.com etc.

So we created custom filter with

Filter field: referral

Filter Pattern: Webcrawler.com|semalt.com|in-g61.mail.yahoo.com|d47c5f40.linkbucks.com|buttons-for-website.com|semalt.semalt.com|forum.topic34157145.darodar.com|social-buttons.com

While verification of filter there is error displaying i.e. This filter would not have changed your data. Either the filter configuration is incorrect, or the set of sampled data is too small.

Please help in resolving issue..

[TheeDigital]

2 things you should test for yourself Alick, and these are simple tests.

#1 Setup an Analytics property and do not put the code on any site. You will still see referral traffic from darodar, social-buttons, simple-share-buttons, etc. Think about it one second, the code is not on a site or server, so how would blocking them in .htaccess work, when there is no server with an .htaccess file.

#2 Setup another view in your account, with the only difference being filters setup to block referrals from spam bots. Now these 2 are on the same ID and would have the same traffic. If referral was made into direct traffic, then the numbers would still be the same, but you'll find the number is reduced the same amount as the spam traffic.

[Alick300]

Hi Richard,

No offence intended, Richard I have tested with my site and what I have replied above is absolutely true & If you still don't believe me I am sharing two articles one is from moz itself other is also from authoritative source.

http://www.optimizesmart.com/geek-guide-removing-referrer-spam-google-analytics/

http://moz.com/blog/how-to-stop-spam-bots-from-ruining-your-analytics-referral-data

Thanks

[TheeDigital]

What Alick proposes will not work. Social-buttons.com falls into the category of a ghost referral, meaning they are spamming Google Analytics and never actually go to your site. Also, creating a Filter in Analytics does exactly what it says, it creates a filter and keeps the session from counting. It is not somehow converted to direct traffic, it is completely removed.

The test if the filter is working is simply faulty. It looks like your regex is correct and it should work, just check back in a couple days to see if they are gone.

[Alick300]

Hi Ravi,

By filtering It will just hide the problem as then the traffic from spambot will appear as direct traffic in your GA reports and you will no longer be able to measure the impact of the spambot on your website traffic.

*Do not exclude the referrer spam website from the referral traffic via ‘Referral exclusion list’ - this will not solve your problem.

If you have access your .htaccess file (or web config if you use IIS) and add the following code:

e.g

RewriteEngine On

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://([^.]+.)*social-buttons.com\ [NC,OR]

RewriteRule .* – [F]

You can do for similarly for other website as well.

Hope this helps

Thanks