Semalt Speaks About Anti-Spam Measures On Google Analytics

When you deal with Google Analytics, one thing you really want to do is concentrate fully on your data. Unfortunately, there's always the annoyingly odd and frustrating encounter with spam messages. Spam on Google Analytics has become a really contentious issue hence this article expounding on the same.

During the last 2 years, Google Trends exhibits a significant rise in the number of searches on Google Analytics Spam and how to overcome it. Spam essentially refers to fake referral traffic generated by spiders and bots on referral reports, which alternatively skew Google Analytics data reports. So, Artem Abgarian, the Semalt expert, conveys crucial information on how to eliminate this referral spam.

First, you need to define all sources of Google Analytics tracking code which is mainly accessed from your main and alternative website domain. We commonly define domains by use of Regular Expressions which you don't have to be a tech nerd to apply. They simply involve typing each domain with a backslash (\) before any full stop while separating each domain with a pipe (|). Besides, ensure there's no spacing within or between the domains. Once you define the source of traffic to your domain, you will be able to use a filter to clean all span data emanating from fake websites. The filter setting can be activated by navigating to 'Admin", click 'Filters,' then 'Add Filter,' then select filter type as 'Custom' and confirming the action on the 'Include' option. Finally, click on the 'Save' button to ensure your changes are applied and stored.

Some spam data can pass through your filters with the assistance of crawlers within the specified or defined domain names. In this case, make use of custom filters to exclude all now known sources of spam data. More pro-actively, you can also scan and evaluate your data using Acquisition reports that reveal all data sources. This approach not only allows you to clean your reports but also get in touch and understand the reports. This step is activated by clicking under the 'Acquisition' and navigating into the 'Source/Medium' report. Once you examine all data sources and find spam, proceed to create custom filters with commands to exclude the spam sources from your data as discussed earlier. Also note that the regular expression for each custom filter must not exceed a maximum of 255 characters, which means you will require multiple filters to limit several spam sources.

Thirdly, be shrewd to weed out fake coded language on your reports. Normally, a coded language has around 5 characters. Fake coded language has more including characters such as full stops. In this case, regular expressions such as .{13,}|\. are used to create custom filters that exclude coded language with 13 or more characters including full stops.

Last but not least, you must remove Google Analytics spam by enabling BOT filtering which restricts reports on known bot or spider traffic. Configure this by navigating 'Admin,' selecting 'View Settings' and clicking to check the 'Bot Filtering' option. These measures will spare you the frustration before Google presents a permanent solution.