Spam using Hostname so filter not working
-
Hello, on one of our sites, we have filtered via the hostname. We have done this on other sites quite happily but on this particular new website, when we add in the hostname filter, we still get loads of direct and referral traffic which is junk - and the hostname of these junk referrals are the website's domain. So it seems that this filter is not working or the spam are now using the hostname?
Not sure what is going on or how to solve this?
-
Thanks Paul, it is a real pain. What do they get out of this? Am I being naive?
-
This is likely to be bot spam - bot crawlers that are actually visiting the site, so their visits record the genuine hostname.
The only way around these clowns is to block the visits in .htaccess and/or use Google Analytics filters to remove the data.
Because they're constantly morphing, it's a bit of an arms race to keep up with them. If your site uses WordPress, there are a number of solid plugins that use crowdsourcing to frequently update in order to block these. There are also a few folks providing prebuilt GA filters that are also keep up to date by crowdsourcing - but still a manual process to update The filters in GA.
Hope that helps?
Paul
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
-
Query on Product List Position After doing filters
Hi All, I have implemented enhance ecommerce with tag manager now I am implementing Product List Position so I have query that if visitor do filter or do sorting via highest or lowest price at that time do we have to show List position too? If yes then how and if No then why?
Reporting & Analytics | | Arnold3
Thanks!Mitesh0 -
Page Tracking using Custom URLs - is this viable?
Hi Moz community! I’ll try to make this question as easy to understand as possible, but please excuse me if it isn’t clear. Just joined a new team a few months ago and found out that on some of our most popular pages we use “custom URLs” to track page metrics within Google Analytics. NOTE: I say “custom URLs” because that is the best way for me to describe them. As an example: This page exists to our users: http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Ram_HD/2012/photos-interior/ But this is the URL we have coded on the page: cars-trucks/used-cars/reviews/2012-Ram-HD/photos-interior/ (within the custom variance script labeled as “var l_tracker=” ) It is this custom URL that we use within GA to look up metrics about this page. This is just one example of many across our site setup to do the same thing Here is a second example: Available page to user: http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Cadillac_ATS/2015/ Custom “var l_tracker=” /cars-trucks/2015-Cadillac-ATS/overview/ NOTE: There is a small amount of fear that the above method was implemented years ago as a work-around to a poorly structured URL architecture. Not validated, but that is a question that arose. Main Questions: Is the above implementation a normal and often used method to track pages in GA? (coming from an Omniture company before – this would not be how we handled page level tracking) Team members at my current company are divided on this method. Some believe this is not a proper implementation and are concerned that trying to hide these from Google will raise red flags (i.e. fake URLs in general = bad) I cannot find any reference to this method anywhere on the InterWebs - If method is not normal: Any recommendations on a solution to address this? Potential Problems? GA is currently cataloguing these tracking URLs in the Crawl Error report. Any concerns about this? The team wants to hide the URLs in the Robots.txt file, but some team members are concerned this may raise a red flag with Google and hurt us more than help us. Thank you in advance for any insight and/or advice. Chris
Reporting & Analytics | | usnseomoz0 -
How to trigger a pageview using Google Analytics API upon form submission
I need to set up a goal using the G A API to trigger a pageview when someone submits a lead on my site. There's no "thank you"page currently. How do I go about it? There's no "thank you"page currently. How do I go about it? I have never used the API but am very familiar with analytics. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Majsan0 -
Google Analytics Real Time Not Working! :(
Hello Everyone, Today, the real time feature in my google analytics stopped working. I am able to see that traffic is visiting my site, but not in real time. The real time count is usually at 0. But, there are some instances where real time will come back online, but there will be only 1 unique visitor. At any given time, our website usually has 20 visitors or so..Has anyone encountered this issue? Where should i start looking for fixes? What are the possible problems? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | KarlMarxTheBear0 -
How to use remarketing using GTM?
Hello Everybody, Can you please tell me how to use remarketing using GTM? I have read lots of post but confused with Google Analytic, adwords, merchant, tag manager, codes...etc. So can any one explain me properly? Regards, BK Mitesh
Reporting & Analytics | | bkmitesh0 -
What type of links/redirect is Yahoo! using?
So I'm trying to figure out exactly what type redirect or hyperlinking Yahoo! is using on their article pages. For example:
Reporting & Analytics | | William.Lau
https://shopping.yahoo.com/blogs/fashionate/spring-clean-your-beauty-routine--10-tips-on-looking-fresh-this-season-000058218.html Hover over an external link, it shows you the ending URL. Right or left click it, it gives you a 302 redirect. When you actually left click it, it adds and "id" attribute, I assume for tracking. However, when you left click the the hyperlink, it no longer shows as a 302. I have limited working knowledge of web development techniques, so anyone with advance knowledge or have actually done this, it'd be helpful to understand this more.0 -
Can you use an advance segment as a metric or dimension for another advance segment in GA?
I have 3 advanced segments set up: Branded keywords Non-branded keywords (all) irrelevant non-branded keywords. irrelevant non-branded keywords are keywords where the visitor is not ready to purchase. for example keywords including terms such as "ideas" or "how to".. these have generated 0 conversions for us, and I want to track these separately from keywords that have a chance in converting, since the conversion rate between the two groups vary a lot. for the advanced segment "branded" - i listed a listed of keywords pertaining to the company name - using includes, Matching regexp and | (pipe) between keywords for advanced segment "non-branded keywords" - i took the same list and excluded matching regexp | between keywords. **for advanced segments "irrelevant keywords" ** - i took one word as the keyword and used includes, contains, and the keywords.. using OR statement between keywords. pipe doesn't seem to work with the "contains", and only seems to work with "matching regexp". **What i want to do is excluded all items from "Irrelevant keywords" in advanced segment "Non-branded keywords". but i can't seem to exclude based on another custom segment. **nor can I list - [X statement OR (statement y OR statement Z OR statement AB)] any thoughts on handling this logic?
Reporting & Analytics | | S.S.N0 -
How to Turn Google Analytics Into Your Own Rank Tracker Using Custom Variables
I followed the instructions here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables, but cannot see the report in Analytics under "Custom Variables". As I dont know JS syntax, I assume the code is wrong. I just added dohertyjf's code under my normal tracking code. Can someone tell me if and where the error is? | | Much obliged!
Reporting & Analytics | | zeepartner0