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  4. Direct traffic spam on Google Analytics: how can you identify and filter it?

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Direct traffic spam on Google Analytics: how can you identify and filter it?

Reporting & Analytics
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  • RosemaryB
    RosemaryB last edited by Jul 28, 2015, 9:19 PM

    One of my smaller clients noticed a huge jump in direct traffic visits last month.  The bounce rate was around 97% so I'm pretty certain that most of the traffic was illegitimate.  I know how to filter out spam referrals and organic keywords in Google Analytics.  However I'm not sure what to do about direct traffic spam.  Are there recommendations for filtering this out?  Can I identify spam IP addresses?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • OptiBacUK
      OptiBacUK @RosemaryB last edited by Jul 29, 2015, 7:41 PM Jul 29, 2015, 7:41 PM

      Can you add a secondary dimension of medium and upload another screenshot? You will be able to cut out a large number of spam visits when you so that.

      Essentially you will end up with hostname (not set) having medium of referral and medium of none.

      Upload a screenshot and I may be in a better place to advise

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • RosemaryB
        RosemaryB @Travis_Bailey last edited by Jul 29, 2015, 2:08 PM Jul 29, 2015, 2:04 PM

        I was looking for spam hostnames however a large volume of traffic coming to my clients website is from "not set" hostnames.  I have feeling the (not set) hostname includes spammers.  Do you know what else I can do about this?

        95LPe1w.jpg

        OptiBacUK 1 Reply Last reply Jul 29, 2015, 7:41 PM Reply Quote 0
        • BradsDeals
          BradsDeals @Travis_Bailey last edited by Jul 29, 2015, 11:42 AM Jul 29, 2015, 11:42 AM

          Yep, hostname is where I would start looking as well. Also geographic segments like country and region if your site is targeting only a particular country/state/city.

          And building on what Brett is saying, find a list of common nuisance bots and block them via robots.txt. That may help as well.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Brett-Harland
            Brett-Harland last edited by Jul 29, 2015, 8:06 AM Jul 29, 2015, 8:06 AM

            Hello Rosemary,

            Couple of things to check in GA under view settings under admin make sure Bot filtering is checked. Also under the menu in filtering you can add and IP exclusion list (from other office locations for example). Further you can add websites that you do not want referral traffic to be recording from this can be done under property/tracking info/ referral exclusion list

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Travis_Bailey
              Travis_Bailey last edited by Jul 28, 2015, 10:18 PM Jul 28, 2015, 10:18 PM

              Create a segment that only shows traffic to the hostname. (yoursite.com, youtube.com, paypal.com) That's it. It's pretty amazing how much traffic would appear to be spam.

              BradsDeals RosemaryB 2 Replies Last reply Jul 29, 2015, 2:04 PM Reply Quote 0
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