Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#1

Post by taigeair » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 10:32 AM UTC

Looking at my GA, I see I'm getting lots of traffic from random spammy websites. Do you know why this is?

e.g. floating-share-buttons.com and 100dollars-seo.com

How can I stop this?

Thanks, http://cl.ly/image/1K2Q1r381f2l

Re: Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#2

Post by jjgreen » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 10:38 AM UTC

They hope you will publish the URLs (which you have) :-(

Re: Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#3

Post by MarkCole » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 10:42 AM UTC

This is a technique called referrer spam. It's not real traffic just a way to get you as the owner of your site to visit theirs and "hopefully" purchase whatever they're trying to sell.

If you wish to clean up your reports the only real way to do it is using filters[0]. Or optionally switching to a different analytics provider.

[0] http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/howto-fix-ghost-traff...

Re: Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#4

Post by taigeair » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 12:11 PM UTC

MarkCole wrote: post #3

This is a technique called referrer spam. It's not real traffic just a way to get you as the owner of your site to visit theirs and "hopefully" purchase whatever they're trying to sell. If you wish to clean up your reports the only real way to do it is using filters[0]. Or optionally switching to a different analytics provider. [0] http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/howto-fix-ghost-traff...

I see. I can filter it out but is there any way to stop it? Thanks,

Re: Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#5

Post by tehwebguy » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 12:24 PM UTC

taigeair wrote: post #4

MarkCole wrote: post #3

This is a technique called referrer spam. It's not real traffic just a way to get you as the owner of your site to visit theirs and "hopefully" purchase whatever they're trying to sell. If you wish to clean up your reports the only real way to do it is using filters[0]. Or optionally switching to a different analytics provider. [0] http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/howto-fix-ghost-traff...

I see. I can filter it out but is there any way to stop it? Thanks,

Yes, you can filter it at the GA level or block it server-side but some of it can only be blocked at the GA level (because they are sending a fake ping to Google with your GA ID, rather than crawling your website)

Re: Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#6

Post by gesman » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

tehwebguy wrote: post #5

taigeair wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. I can filter it out but is there any way to stop it? Thanks,

Yes, you can filter it at the GA level or block it server-side but some of it can only be blocked at the GA level (because they are sending a fake ping to Google with your GA ID, rather than crawling your website)

They are actually hitting the website. I don't use GA (I wrote my own analytics) and that's what i see in logs.

Re: Ask HN: Why do I get so much traffic from random spam websites

#7

Post by nsuQAEsax » Mon, Jul 13, 2015, 8:56 PM UTC

Really long time ago I found a similar behavior in one of my sites. And it was because I had Awstats publicly accessible and they were interested in put their link in the page as it was indexed by Google.