Semalt Expert: How To Stop Referral Spam With Google Analytics Filters

Online businesses require the generation of traffic and increased conversions to survive in the market. In this case, analytics plays a big role towards attaining high-value traffic and increased conversions. Businesses with a sole aim of generating traffic towards their website should have a measure of tendency to tell which traffic is converting at a high rate. Mostly, businesses generate content to meet customers' needs and specifications. Generation of fresh and original content is always advocated for when it comes to content marketing.

The problems come in when referral spam, an analytics enemy that alters the available data takes on the trafficking. Referral spam works to change data's accuracy by messing with the registered numbers, more likely the traffic. Luckily, Google has this at hand to make sure businesses trying to succeed online don't fail.

Looking forward to having an accurate data for your B2B and B2C firm? Michael Brown, the Semalt Customer Success Manager, offers to your attention a guide that will help you to excel without encountering any problems.

The take of Referrer on Referral spam

For starters who need the basics, the referrer is the website that is prevailed when a visitor goes from one website page to the other. If a visitor gets to click a link that was sourced on a certain article, the link will be outlined in the Google Analytics as the referral source. Referral sources are mainly used to generate insights into how valuable a link is to a business website.

Information on referral spam

Referral spam is primary of two types which include:

Crawler referral spam

• This is a fake referral spam that operates on a fake basis. The spam works by faking a referrer and giving it an ideal name to generate traffic and show up in your Google Analytics report. Crawler referral spam continues sending links to your site to gather more traffic. However, the name used by referral spam is always fake and unethical as it happens with the ghost referral spam.

Ghost referral spam

• Ghost referral spam is mostly operated by the unethical digital marketer with a sole aim of promoting a certain page.

Blocking referrer spam using Google Analytics

Google Analytics works to block both crawler and ghost referral spam in the most effective manner. To get a list of all referral spam, go to the Google Analytics and click the reporting tab. Select the time frame you want and then select audience, and expand to the network option. Go through the hostnames and gather all the invalid hostnames. Create a regular expression that will filter all invalid hostnames and referrals in the Google Analytics.

Digital marketers can also block referral spam using the campaign source. This is not only a reliable option to block referral spam but the simpler one. In this option, one does not execute the hostname filter, but rather the campaign source. Have an effective campaign in your website by dealing with malicious threats and referral spam effectively.