Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Whittie,

The unusual spike on direct visits is most likely because of ghost spam, check your referrals and see if you see free-social-buttons or something similar (there might be others), this spammer has been hitting with fake direct visits along with the referral. To be sure this is spam go to:

Acquisition > Channels > All traffic > Select Hostname as a second dimension

You will probably see a fake hostname or not set. Also, if you check the landing page they will be  "/" and the page title "Home Page" instead of the title of your real home page.

The problem with conventional methods of stopping spam is that they will just take care of the referral part. The best solution for ghost spam is to use a filter that includes only your hostnames. This will stop ghost spam in any form referral, organic, page and even the fake direct visits.

You can read this article for details about this specific issue and the valid hostname filter.

http://www.ohow.co/unusual-increase-in-direct-traffic-on-ga-spam/

Hope it helps,

Whittie

Hi Michelle,

I can think of 2 main benefits of using words in URLs have instead of numbers.

If you are reading an article about Paella, and there is a list of recipes from different pages:

• mysite.com/453112
• othersite.com/how-to-cook-best-paella/

The second link is most likely to get more clicks. The same situation on Google search page, although the title is more important a readable URL will always be better to the user.

The second benefit for SEO purposes is that matching keywords from the title of you page and the URL will give you a boost, how much will be it is to discuss.

Here is an excellent MOZ article about the topic

https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls

Hope it helps,

Carlos

Hi Donald,

The only way to pass filters between properties is if they are on the same account, I'm afraid that is not possible to share filters, for historical data you can do it with segments though.

There are a couple of web services that will add the filters automatically for you.

• http://malleablebyte.org/discuss
• http://referrer-spam.help/

They are good  help, but there are 3 inconvenients:

1. You need to grant access to your account, although I think they are trustful.
2. Most likely you will have hits from the spam, by the time they add the spammer to the list, the same happens when you add filters manually after you spot the spammer.
3. Lately spam has been hitting with fake direct visits and these won't be excluded with those filters

The best solution for ghost spam  for now(the one I've been using for months), is instead of excluding fake traffic you should include real, this can be done using 1 of the main characteristics of ghost spam the hostname.

If you check your list of referral spam, you will notice that the use either a fake hostname or is not set. Based on this you can create ONE filter that only includes real hostnames, and all ghost spam no matter if it is referral, keyword, page or direct visit will be excluded.

You will still have to create it for all the accounts, but you won't have to create a filter every time, and most importantly you won't receive hits at all from ghost spam.

You can find a detailed guide on how to set up this filter in this article

• http://www.ohow.co/what-is-referrer-spam-how-stop-it-guide/

Hope it helps,

Carlos

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

http://moz.com/community/q/seeing-massive-spikes-in-direct-traffic-with-100-bounce-rates#reply_298133

Hope it helps,

Hi Dhanson,

This spike in traffic is most likely caused by Spam check your referral reports for hits from guardlink, free-social-buttons, 4webmasters or any suspicious referral. This type of spam usually have high percentage of bounce rate.

If you find spam you can exclude them from your analytics using a filter based on your hostnames. You can find detailed information and a guide in this related question.

http://moz.com/community/q/blocking-non-u-s-traffic-to-fight-referral-spam#reply_301107

Hope it helps

Currently is not possible, but it will be a good feature, I think it is a matter of time before this functionality is available, at the moment there is no other way than sharing the login. Here is

https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/20199538-is-there-a-way-i-could-add-another-user-to-access-my-pro-account

Hope it helps,

Hi Lauren, most likely this is caused by spam, lately spammers have been hitting with fake direct visits along with the referral. You might want to check if you have something similar to free-share-buttons on your referrals.

These referrals are ghost spam and as I mention before they also hit with fake direct visits,  to identify them go to

Acquisition > Channels > All traffic > Select Hostname as a second dimension

You will probably see a fake hostname or not set. Also, if you check the landing page they will be  "/" and the page title "Home Page" instead of the title of your real home page.

Like I said this type of the spam doesn't have a real hostname, so if you create a filter with only your valid hostnames. You will get rid of all ghost spam(current and new) no matter the way it shows, referral, page, keyword, direct.

You can find detailed information about this issue and the solution in this article

http://www.ohow.co/unusual-increase-in-direct-traffic-on-ga-spam/

Hope it helps,

Acquisition

Hi Nick,

I'm assuming you are seeing that on Google Analytics. First of all you don't need to worry about ranking on Google since they don't take into consideration any metric from GA. Here is what Matt Cutts says about it.

Second there is a good chance that this spike of direct traffic is caused by spam, check your referrals and see if you find free-social-buttons or any other unusual referrer. If you do, then that is the cause of the high bounce rate.

To stop the spam, you should create a filter based on your hostnames in GA. Excluding USA won't do much since the spam can com from many countries including Canada. If you need more information, this article will help you,

Unusual spike of direct traffic (Spam)

Hope it helps,

Carlos

Hi Rosemary,

The solution seems to be more complicated that it seems from their end. The last I see is that the GA team is preparing some guidelines to deal with this problem.

Solution or Guide, meanwhile you can use a more efficient solution, a filter to INCLUDE only valid hostnames. All ghost spam uses either a fake hostname or is not set. This method requires a little more effort to apply it, but it has 3 huge benefits over your current solution.

• You will stop the spam before it hits you, adding a filter for the referral after you see it will stop it, but by the time you apply it you will have already hits of the spam.
• You will need only ONE filter to stop ghost spam, instead of creating various sets of filters.
• Lately some of the spammers have been hitting GA accounts with fake direct visits along with the referral, the filter for the referral won’t stop the direct visit, on the other hand. The Valid hostname filter will stop ALL ghost spam in any form whether it shows as a referral, keyword or direct visit.

This is the method that I've been using for my accounts, and once applied it doesn't require maintenance unless you add hostnames. You can find a detailed explanation of how this filter works and a guide to set it up in this article.

http://www.ohow.co/what-is-referrer-spam-how-stop-it-guide/

Hope it helps,

There are few other reasons why bounce rate from Google Analytics doesn't affect ranking if you think about it not everyone uses GA, so that wouldn't be a fair measure. Another reason is the spam, most of it doesn't even get to your page, so there is no interaction whatsoever leaving fake data, and by now Google is more than aware of it.

However, you are right, as you mention the algorithm Google uses is complex and constantly evolving, so there might be another way to measure the time spent on your page after a search, for example, the back button of the browser.

So we can split it if the high bounce rate comes from fake traffic/spam in GA, then there is nothing to worry about. If it is from valid traffic, then it shouldn't be taken lightly since Google might be using other ways to measure it rather than GA.

Again Google knows the one and only truth, so we can only make educated guesses based on what we see

Carlos

Hi Pete,

If you use the predefined filter, then you shouldn't use the backslashes, on the other hand if you use a custom filter for IP Address you should.

Custom filters use regular expressions, and the dots are special characters that are use to match any character. So if you use 64.68.82.164 without backslashes, it means that it will match everything on the dots, all of these will be a match:

• 64.68.82x164
• 64a68**.82.**164
• 64**.68.82.**164

If you escape the dots 64.68.82.164, then it will match exactly the IP.

Since IPs have specific formats, it won't be a problem but to be correct if you use custom filters you should use backslashes.

Hope it helps,

Hi Kat,

If you want to exclude the spammer you should use Campaign Source as a field type, instead of predefined filter use:

• Filter type Custom > Exclude
• Filter Field > Campaign Source
• File Pattern Box enter the spammer you want to exclude. You don't need to create a different filter for each one; you can create an expression like this:

4webmasters.com|free-share-buttons.com|trafficmonetize.org|morespammers

The backslashes before the dots "." and the dashes "-" are needed because custom filters use Regular Expressions. You can keep adding up to 255 characters after that you have to create another filter

If you want to try a better solution, I recommend you to try a filter based on your hostnames.
This solution requires a little more time to set up, but it has three huge advantages over the Campaign Source solution

• You will stop the spam before it hits you, adding a filter for the referral after you see it will stop it, but by the time you apply it you will have already hits of the spam.
• You will need only ONE filter to stop all ghost spam, instead of creating various sets of filters.
• Lately, some of the spammers(e.g. free-social-buttons) have been hitting GA accounts with fake direct visits along with the referral, the filter for the referral won’t stop the direct visit, on the other hand. The Valid hostname filter will stop ghost spam in any form whether it shows as a referral, keyword or direct visit.

This is what I've been using on my accounts for, the last moths and I haven't received a single hit of ghost spam the vast majority.

Here are a detailed guide and more information about all these solutions and spam in Google Analytics.

http://www.ohow.co/what-is-referrer-spam-how-stop-it-guide/

Hope it helps,

• Hi Ira,

  Including only traffic from USA will stop many of the spammers but many will continue hitting you, as you can see in the screenshot I attached. I recommend you to try the solution a filter based on your hostnames.

  This solution requires a little more time to set up, but it has **3 huge advantages, **and you won't have to exclude all the world except USA.

  • You will stop the spam before it hits you, adding a filter for the referral after you see it will stop it, but by the time you apply it you will have already hits of the spam.
  • You will need only ONE filter to stop all ghost spam, instead of creating various sets of filters.
  • Lately, some of the spammers(e.g. free-social-buttons) have been hitting GA accounts with fake direct visits along with the referral, the filter for the referral won’t stop the direct visit, on the other hand. The Valid hostname filter will stop ALL ghost spam in any form whether it shows as a referral, keyword or direct visit.

  This is what I've been using on my accounts for the last moths and I haven't received a single hit of ghost spam. Combining the valid hostname filter with a Campaign Source filter you will control the spam. Here is a detailed guide and more information about these solutions.

• http://www.ohow.co/what-is-referrer-spam-how-stop-it-guide/

  Hope it helps,

U6yhnlt.png

Hi Noah,

Excluding the whole world would be a drastic solution, I know the spam is a bad issue, but you could be missing real traffic even if you are a local website, and even if you don't, you will still be getting spam coming from USA and there is quite some. I recommend you to try other solution a filter based on your hostnames.

This solution requires a little more time to set up, but it has 3 huge advantages, and you won't have to exclude all the world except USA.

• You will stop the spam before it hits you, adding a filter for the referral after you see it will stop it, but by the time you apply it you will have already hits of the spam.
• You will need only ONE filter to stop all ghost spam, instead of creating various sets of filters.
• Lately, some of the spammers(e.g. free-social-buttons) have been hitting GA accounts with fake direct visits along with the referral, the filter for the referral won’t stop the direct visit, on the other hand. The Valid hostname filter will stop ALL ghost spam in any form whether it shows as a referral, keyword or direct visit.

This is what I've been using on my accounts for the last moths and I haven't received a single hit of ghost spam. You can find more information of how this filter works and a detailed guide to set it up in this article.

http://www.ohow.co/what-is-referrer-spam-how-stop-it-guide/

If you are not convinced and still want to exclude all countries you can follow the same guide for the valid hostname on the article and just change the filter field for Country and put United States in the filter pattern

Hope it helps,

To apply the filters to different properties in the same account:

1. Go to the Admin tab > Select the account from the dropdown (first column)
2. Select All filters
3. Choose the filter you want to apply
4. Go to Apply filters to views at the bottom of the Edit Filter page
5. And move all the views from the properties you want to apply the filter

"Apply filters to views"

Hi Jajiv,

Sure there is, you can follow this step by step guide is very well explained.

http://authoritywebsiteincome.com/how-to-actually-set-up-google-analytics-click-tracking-affiliate-links-and-external-clicks-step-by-step-guide/

Hope it helps,

Hi Cesar, I see many cities/countries(122/8) used by 4webmasters but not Fort Lee, I attached you a couple of screens. However, it is possible that it is using it, ghost spammers can fake most of the data. To be sure select Fort Lee and select as a second dimension source, and then you will see where it that coming from.

Have you try using a filter based on your hostnames, this will get rid of any ghost spam no matter what or where they come from. If you check the hostname used by this type of spam you will see that they use either a fake hostname or they leave it as not set.

You can check this related question if you need help setting it up and more information about it.

http://moz.com/community/q/where-is-all-the-referral-spam-coming-from#reply_299545

Hope it helps,

Vn2nbmm.png j3UUrXw.png

Hi seequs, to complement Cyrus answer, here is an explanation of Matt Cutts related to your question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgBw9tbAQhU. And if you think about it, it wouldn't be fair since not everyone uses Google Analytics.

About the spam harming your site, if we talk about ghost spam there is nothing to worry(except for your data of course) since there is not real interaction with the spam and any of your pages, it all happens in GA. On the other hand, Crawler Spam does access your site, and it uses your resources, although is nothing to be alarmed since visits from this type of spam are less frequent than ghosts.

If you want to fully block crawlers you can do it by adding some lines to your .htaccess file, like this

STOP REFERRER SPAM

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} semalt.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} buttons-for-website.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

It seems that the problem with the spam is not that simple. For what I understand they are preparing a guide. In the meantime, if you are not already using a filter based on valid hostnames, I recommend you to do it, one filter, and you will forget about the ghost spam. You can find more information about this solution here

http://moz.com/community/q/seeing-massive-spikes-in-direct-traffic-with-100-bounce-rates?#reply_298133

Hope it helps,

Hi Blue, in which dimension you are seeing google.inc? If you choose hostname as a second dimension do you see "not set"?

Hey there,

Do you see any of these referrals on your reports 4webmasters, free-social-buttons, trafficmonetize... (there are many) If you do then you don't have to worry about security issues or anything apart from your data quality.

You are not being attacked, at least personally, this type of spam is called ghost since it doesn't have any interaction with your site whatsoever and strikes many GA users.

As I mention the only thing you should worry about (big thing though) is your data. Here is a related question on MOZ that will help you get rid of it, I strongly recommend you to follow the valid hostname solution.

Hope it helps,

Carlos

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,

http://i.imgur.com/Kx4PD15.png

The filter verification takes a small sample of data and sometimes in that sample there won't be any change.

Another reason for what you may get this error is because the filter was saved before the verification, so you will have to delete the filter and create it again for the verification to work. Better yet you can use the filter expression in a segment it will give you a better idea of how the filter will work since the segment is not limited to a few days.

If you try to exclude by the offender don't use referral as a filter field use Campaign Source.

For the filter based on valid hostnames, there is no need to put the domain with and without "www" clientsite.com will match both.

Hope that helps,