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| Ali Glemser |
Ghost referrals, referral spam and spam bots are Google Analytics
headaches.
Chances are that if you manage Google Analytics for a website,
you’ll see what I mean when you go to the Referrals page and sort by source. These
fake referrals have become exponentially more troublesome on Google Analytics
over the past year. Personally, I have noticed the website traffic increase on
many of my clients’ websites by several hundred views each month due to these
nuisances.
These sources are designed to trick you into visiting a
shady/spammy website as you’re trying to find out how visitors are getting to
your own website. They can be divided up into two types of spam: ghost
referrals and non-ghost referrals.
Ghost referrals don’t actually visit your website; instead
they push their data straight to your analytics. Non-ghost referrals, like bots
and spiders, actually hit your website. Because these two types of spam act
differently, you must
approach them differently when you are trying to get rid of them.
Ghost Referrals
These are the majority of the spammers, and they simply
target your Google Analytics so you will seek them out and end up on their
spammy website. The only way to block them is to go through your Google
Analytics to get rid of them. These ghost referrals are pretty smart, so you
will have to go through several
steps to ensure they don’t out-maneuver your preventive measures.
Non-ghost Referrals
Bots and spiders, while annoying to your analytics reports,
actually help with identifying SEO; therefore, you don’t want to block them completely
from the website. Instead, you want to make sure that they aren’t being counted
in your Google Analytics report. You can use these simple steps
in your Analytics administrative settings to take care of that.
The good news is that these sources are rarely out there to
hack your website or cause serious damage to your digital property. The bad
news is without action against them, you are not able to get an accurate
reading on your website analytics and therefore, could be making some
misrepresented business decisions because of them. Additionally, while the
steps in this post may help right now, these spam sources are constantly
evolving. Make a point to maintain surveillance and act proactively against
these digital pests regularly.
Have you seen an
increase in these types of hits in your Google Analytics? Do you have other
tips to add? Comment below.
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