Google Analytics: What Is Referrer Spam?

Google Analytics has the ability to show you how someone came to your sight (remember Direct, Organic, Paid and Referrals?). When it comes to referrals, however, there’s an annoying thing that can show up in reports: Referral spam.

Here’s one of the best definitions I’ve found: “The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referrer URL to the site the spammer wishes to advertise. Sites that publish their access logs, including referrer statistics, will then inadvertently link back to the spammer's site. These links will be indexed by search engines as they crawl the access logs, improving the spammer's search engine ranking. Except for polluting their statistics, the technique does not harm the affected sites. At least since 2014, a new variation of this form of spam occurs on Google Analytics. Spammers send fake visits to Google Analytics, often without ever accessing the affected site. The technique is used to have the spammers' URLs appear in the site statistics, inducing the site owner to visit the spam URLs. When the spammer never visited the affected site, the fake visits are also called Ghost Spam.”

As mentioned, the referrer spam doesn’t necessarily harm your website. It does, however, inflate your website visitor number which can be annoying when it comes to reporting. Although rare, it can also cause server overload if there are too many spam referrals.

How do you fix it? One of the best methods is by utilizing filters in Google Analytics to filter out the URLs that are bothering you. Start by going to Admin > All Filters > New Filter, and from there you can follow Google’s detailed instructions HERE.

References:

Referrer Spam.(2018). Wikipedia. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referrer_spam

Reading Google Analytics: Direct Traffic

If you use Google Analytics (which, you definitely should be doing), you know that there are different “sources” of how people arrived to your website. The default types of traffic, or mediums, are: Direct, Organic, Paid and Referrals. Let’s talk about “Direct” traffic.

How about we start with Google’s definition?

“Source: Every referral to a website has an origin, or source. Possible sources include: ‘google’ (the name of a search engine), ‘facebook.com”’(the name of a referring site), ‘spring_newsletter’ (the name of one of your newsletters), and ‘direct’ (users that typed your URL directly into their browser, or who had bookmarked your site).”

Ok, but is there more beyond just direct URLs and bookmarks? Yes. Any kind of traffic that cannot be recognized is categorized as “Direct” by Google Analytics, which means:

• Users using incognito/private browsing mode

• As reported from other sources, there can be as much as an estimated 7% of organic traffic being shown as direct.

• Many times, apps and other mobile traffic sources are often marked as “Direct.”

• When a user follows a link on a secure (HTTPS) page to a non-secure (HTTP) page

I know, it’s frustrating. The good news is that you can help avoid many false “direct” traffic readings by adding parameters to URLs to identify the campaigns that refer traffic. HERE’S HOW.

References:

Traffic Source Dimensions. Google Analytics Help. (2018). Source: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033173?hl=en

Google Makes It Even Harder to Estimate Missing iOS 6 Organic Search Data. Search Engine Watch. (2018). Source: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2274278/google-makes-it-even-harder-to-estimate-missing-ios-6-organic-search-data

Custom campaigns: Add parameters to URLs to identify the campaigns that refer traffic. Google Analytics Help. (2018). Source: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033863?hl=en