Google referral spam - decreasing?

HoosierBuff · Mar 3, 2016

I'm doing a bunch of month end reports and it looks like, for most of my clients, there was a big drop in referral spam. I'm very happy if this happened - it's one less thing to worry about. Is anyone else seeing this?

E.Dieter Martin · Mar 4, 2016

Yes, I see that as well for the clients where I didn't create filters.

Conor Treacy · Mar 8, 2016

Saw a big drop in traffic too (up to 25% on some clients) and started to go into a "uhhhh" mode yesterday (1 step before panic, and 2 steps before meltdown)

Today, I'm happy to see this posting in my feed "Google Analytics Now Removes Referral Spam from Reports Automatically" - posted on TheSEMPost;

Google Analytics Now Removes Referral Spam from Reports Automatically

So hopefully referral spam for everyone has been killed. Now, comparing Febrary against January, or any previous months will show a drop in traffic as the spam isn't removed from previous months.

cd2 · Apr 7, 2016

Thank you for this. I noticed this myself in Analytics and searched for a Google announcement about it. At first I found nothing, then, luckily, found your confirmation of my hunch. Thanks for the link to the article too. I would think more people would be talking about it. But at least you are!

Conor Treacy · Apr 7, 2016

cd2 said:
I would think more people would be talking about it. But at least you are!

Yeah, I thought this would have gotten a lot more traction, especially as people compare their Q1 results with previous quarters or years. Now that Q1 is over, maybe it'll get some traction when people see massive drops - but who knows.

We pushed out our own article on it, and I know it helped save a number of phone calls and emails from our own clients - https://www.bigredseo.com/google-analytics-traffic-drop-feb-2016-dont-panic-yet/

We're still using custom segments on our reporting for clients as it doesn't catch everything, but between Google's filters and our own, we're getting much more accurate results these days.

cd2 · Apr 11, 2016

I first heard about it on the SEO 101 podcast and then looked everywhere. Nothing is being said except by a couple of people, one of which is you. I noticed a drop in referral spam, but some is still there, it seems, in GA. I was so tired of trying to filter it out all the time, I'm glad it is going away.

I'll check out your blog post too.

Thanks.

cd2 · Apr 12, 2016

I wrote about it in my blog too. When I check my analytics for certain clients, some are still getting referral ghost spam. See here: How I Do SEO - Help for SEO Beginners: Ghost Referral Spam is Gone?

CodyBaird · Apr 12, 2016

This the best thing to happen to GA in a while IMO. Still seeing some spam creep in but the accounts I monitor have been cleaned up dramatically.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

leadjoint · May 12, 2016

What's the latest here? I checked for one site that I do not filter and out of 630 sessions since March, only 10 sessions are from genuine sources.

E.Dieter Martin · May 12, 2016

It seems to be back.
Guess they found another way around Google's spam protections.

Andy · Sep 23, 2016

Dear all, since ghost referral spam is still present and since for a many small local sites (like the one I manage) 40 sessions a month of spam is still significant (7%of my site's sessions for instance), I wanted to share with all those of you in a similar situation some useful links

https://www.ohow.co/ultimate-guide-to-removing-irrelevant-traffic-in-google-analytics/
https://www.ohow.co/common-causes-of-unnatural-spikes-in-direct-traffic-google-analytics/

I found this site to be very thorough, with sound advice and very clear/ good quality info

Best

Andy

andykuiper · Feb 27, 2017

I am seeing it more in organic now, not just referral... ack!

HoosierBuff · Mar 1, 2017

It is so terrible. . . I can't believe that this has continued for as long as it has. It probably doesn't matter to larger sites, since it doesn't sway the numbers much, but, for smaller guys, you really have to make 100 changes just to get an accurate read on traffic.

A total joke.

Google referral spam - decreasing?

HoosierBuff

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E.Dieter Martin

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Conor Treacy

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cd2

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Conor Treacy

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cd2

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cd2

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CodyBaird

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leadjoint

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E.Dieter Martin

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Andy

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andykuiper

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HoosierBuff

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