If you’re not familiar with Google Analytics (GA) referral spam, it’s because you’ve never looked closely at your GA results. Referral spam has been notorious for several years, and it’s a constant frustration for marketers who have to provide analytics reports to their clients. Even more frustrating is Google’s lack of action to prevent it.
This solution has several steps that include:
- Creating an Unfiltered View
- Creating a new Property in GA
- Implementing a Valid Hostname filter
- Adding spam crawl filters
- Creating a Custom Segment
- Turning on Google’s Bots & Spiders option
Some of the steps are a bit technical and involved, but they’re all doable. I personally wanted to make sure it was done correctly and maintained over time, so I chose to use a personalised spam filter service which cost £75/year. It’s a small price to pay for a business site that depends on valid data. However, for my smaller, personal sites I just did it myself.
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