Spam Traffic in Google Analytics 4 – Resolving the Issue
How to combat unwanted referral traffic
Millions of website owners face the challenge of spam internet traffic. Statistics show that nearly half of all internet traffic is classified as spam, making it crucial to know how much spam is affecting your website and how to block it. This article tackles the issue of spam traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4), exploring its impact and equipping you with the tools to stop and block it from skewing your data.
While it may appear as a surge in traffic, artificial traffic spam like uniform traffic ticket spam is generated by malicious actors with harmful intentions, such as manipulating search engine rankings, among others.
By understanding these goals and learning how to block spam traffic on your website on platforms like WordPress or other popular website creation platforms, you can safeguard your data and make informed decisions about your website’s performance.
This article will equip you with the knowledge and tools to combat this “spam referral traffic” and ensure your analytics data remains accurate and insightful.
What is Google Analytics Spam Referral Traffic?
Spam referral traffic refers to fake or irrelevant website visits artificially inflated by malicious actors. These visits are often from newly created domains ending in “.site” or “.website” and typically originate from locations like Poland. Their goal?
To:
- Boost their website’s visibility and traffic
- Earn backlink benefits by appearing in your analytics
- Lure you to their potentially malicious websites
- Manipulate search engine rankings through fake visits
- Gain commissions through fraudulent affiliate programs
Spam traffic in google Analytics - Why is it a Problem?
No More Custom Filters in GA4 to Exclude Spam Traffic
It used to be so much easier in Universal Analytics. Filtering out spammy referral traffic used to be a breeze with the “Referral Exclusions List.” When GA4 rolled out, they deprecated this simple functionality, possibly due to a combination of factors like:
- Different data model
- Cutting costs on data processing
- Data integrity
To reclaim what we’ve lost with Custom Filters, we’ll need to identify and filter out the traffic ourselves. Some have voted for the solution to add it as an exclusion for referral traffic in the admin tab, but we warn you that this doesn’t solve the problem – it simply just pushes the traffic into the “direct” traffic source bucket.
Thankfully, Google Tag Manager is there to rescue you – and the process is fairly straightforward. We will show you how to do it.
How to get rid of the spam:
Unfortunately, GA4 lacks the built-in filtering capabilities of its predecessor, Universal Analytics. However, we can still fight back using Google Tag Manager:
- Create a Variable in Tag Manager: Define a variable to identify the referrer hostname using the “HTTP Referrer” component type and selecting “Hostname.”
- Create a Trigger: Establish a trigger to activate when the identified hostname matches spammy domains. You can use “Initialisation,” “Page View,” or “DOM Ready” depending on your setup.
- Set Firing Conditions: Within the trigger, use the variable from step 1 to specify the spam domains you want to block. Use “contains” for a single domain or “Regex” with a pipe (“|”) separator for multiple domains.
Example of a regex containing the most important spam sources: news.grets.store|info.seders.website|ofer.bartikus.site|game.fertuk.site|garold.dertus.site|kar.razas.site
- Create an Exception: In your main Google Tag (Gtag), add an exception using the trigger you created. This ensures the tag doesn’t fire for traffic originating from the identified spam domain
- Publish Changes: Once you’ve configured everything, publish the changes in GTM and monitor your analytics to ensure the filter works as intended.
Additional and Important Tips
- Never visit the suspicious domains shown in your reports. Clicking on these links could lead you to websites hosting malware or viruses. These malicious programs can harm your device by:
* Stealing your personal information, such as login credentials or financial data.
* Installing additional unwanted software or adware.
* Disrupting the functionality of your device. - Segment your reports to exclude the spam traffic for a more accurate picture, for those days you were receiving visits from these sources (our E-book covers how to do this!).
- Explore alternative tools like Looker Studio for more flexible filtering options.
By following these steps described above, you can minimise the impact of spam referral traffic and ensure your GA4 data provides valuable insights for optimising your website and marketing efforts.
If you find this information overwhelming, consider signing up for a GA4 UP subscription. With this subscription, we audit your setup, implement new feature releases and update you on new privacy releases (stay updated with GDPR / CCPA) for a small monthly fee. This subscription allows you to focus on your priorities while the experts handle the rest. Learn more about how we can support you here.
Blog by Tika Spijkerman, Analyst at UP Analytics
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