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Viktor Iwan
Viktor Iwan

Reputation: 89

Fail to filtering Spam Referal in Google Analytics

I see a lot of spam referal in my google analytics... so I'm creating new custom filter and exclude 'hostname' field, with this regex pattern: .*best\-seo\-(offer|solution)\.com|buttons\-for\-your\-website\.com

but somehow those referal still coming up! probably something wrong with my regex pattern eventhough i already validate it through regexpal.com

Any insight ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 84

Answers (1)

Sam Perry
Sam Perry

Reputation: 2614

Filtering by hostname will only exclude sessions that occur on domains that have the same GA tracking code on their domain as yours. See the hostname custom report as example.

Instead you could exclude this referral traffic by adding the spam domains to the referral exclusion list (Admin > Property > Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List.) Unfortunately, you can't add a regex: you have to enter each domain separately. More info on the Referral Exclusion List.

This custom report could give you a list of spam domains to exclude.

UPDATE: I've changed my answer as my previous answer would inflate direct traffic.

You should filter out Referrals instead of Hostname to exclude this spam referral traffic. When creating a filter, make sure you always have a view that has no filters on. Here's how to create the filter:

  1. Admin > View > Filters
  2. + New Filter
  3. Filter Type == Custom
  4. Exclude, Filter Field == Referral

More info in this article.

Upvotes: 1

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