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Google Analytics is becoming useless with so many spammers.

H

HarryPot

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 5, 2009
1,085
548
Anyone here suffering from continuos spammers affecting your analytics?

I've blocked more than 15-20 sites that continually refer spam visits to my site. I block them both from .htaccess file and with filters in Google Analytics.

The problems is, new ones continues appearing every week, and it is becoming a real PITA to keep blocking them.

Would it be really that difficult for Google to block them directly? Or do they just don't care?

Sorry for the rant, but I'm frustrated with this problem.:(
 
I wrote my own analytics to use on the sites I create.

Spamming is a huge concern. I filter all email more than 20 characters prior to the @. This takes care of 99% of spammers.
 
I've been creating filters in Google Analytics as well, a lot of them.

But even for that it feels to be very cumbersome. You can't just click a domain name from the referral list and block it in your views, you need to go and make the filter individually each time.
 
A Suggestion!

Hello, even I was facing similar problems with spams in Google Analytics. I tried to improve it but they kept on multiplying; so I shifted to Gostats, which prevents it smartly. So I'll suggest you to try Gostats instead of Analytics of Google. Also, I found Gostats user friendly and it has some better features than Google Analytics.
 
webstats

Yes, I'm suffering form this problem sometime I feel difficult to work with google analytics. I have heard about gostats that it work properly. Would you like to give me some suggestions about gostats.
 
i also think this spam is BS and you would think Google with all it's money and power could prevent it.
 
In some roundabout way, Google are probably making money from the spammers because I bet a good chunk of the sites being hit carry Google Ads! So little to no incentive to stop it.
 
960design –

Interesting; I'd considered doing that in a simple was as well, partially just as an exercise. Would you mind summarizing your basic approach?
 
This thread caught my attention because of an issue I'm having with GA. I'm not sure it's the same problem but it might be related.

My issue is finding one or two porn sites listed in my analytics, as if they have somehow used my analytics code and attached their site. Clicking on their name brings up a 404 page and my hosting company has run a check and there's no indication of a hack.

I inserted a different GA code into my site, thinking this might eliminate the problem but the same site popped up only with a different country suffix (.me instead of .ru) I created specific and generic filters to combat this and, so far, no additional sites pop up.

Any ideas?
 
filmbufs said:
Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I had the same problem as well.

I ended up filtering all traffic that didn't came from my own Hostname.

Not sure what this makes to valid links from other websites, but at least for now my Analytics is spam free for a while.
 
Last edited:
Can someone tell me why you developers inflict Google Analytics on us?

Seriously - what is the point of Google Analytics - or any of the other snooper rubbish you use ?

I only ask because I keep having to update Ghostery, AdBlock and Little Snitch to stop websites I use connecting to Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the other naff sites.
 
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Slarti.BartFast said:
Seriously - what is the point of Google Analytics - or any of the other snooper rubbish you use ?

I only ask because I keep having to update Ghostery, AdBlock and Little Snitch to stop websites I use connecting to Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the other naff sites.
Click to expand...

Google Analytics affects in no way the experience of the end user. If anything, it helps the web developer to make better sites.
 
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It's already useless for me since I can't use it with google drive (Google docs)
 
dsh3 said:
But you can export Analytics data in to Google Drive (via Sheets), there's an Add-on for that.
Click to expand...

Actually, I used to share my resume (PDF file) on Google Docs, is it possible to track the number of viewers?
 
XmeX said:
Actually, I used to share my resume (PDF file) on Google Docs, is it possible to track the number of viewers?
Click to expand...

Not as far as I know. Best way to track views/downloads of the resume if it's a PDF, I would be to put it on a website and track the clicks/downloads via Analytics. Otherwise you'll need some kind of online service that tracks downloads of the specific file, but I don't know of any as of now.
 
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I had created a filter in GA but still the result was same. Now I'm working with Gostats & it works properly.
 
robertnus said:
I had created a filter in GA but still the result was same. Now I'm working with Gostats & it works properly.
Click to expand...

In that case you didn't filter out the traffic if the result or the spam traffic remained the same. A lot of the spam as of today is referral spam and must be filtered out via their referral names that changes all the time. Regex filters are good for this.
 
I had install a filter but still the result was same. I'll suggest you to go with GoStats, it works much better then GA, easy to install & user friendly.
 
dsh3 said:
In that case you didn't filter out the traffic if the result or the spam traffic remained the same. A lot of the spam as of today is referral spam and must be filtered out via their referral names that changes all the time. Regex filters are good for this.
Click to expand...
Hi Dsh3,
Thanks for your suggestion. I installed a filter also check the configuration of GA but it's not helpful for every website. I think I should go with Gostats.
 
john58975 said:
webstats

Yes, I'm suffering form this problem sometime I feel difficult to work with google analytics. I have heard about gostats that it work properly. Would you like to give me some suggestions about gostats.
Click to expand...

Hi John58975,
I used Gostats, it works much better than Google Analytics. It has some advanced new features. It's free and user friendly. It is easy to install.
 
john58975 said:
webstats

Yes, I'm suffering form this problem sometime I feel difficult to work with google analytics. I have heard about gostats that it work properly. Would you like to give me some suggestions about gostats.
Click to expand...

Hi John58975,
I used Gostats, it works much better than Google Analytics. It has some advanced new features. It's free and user friendly. It is easy to install.
 
john58975 said:
webstats

Yes, I'm suffering form this problem sometime I feel difficult to work with google analytics. I have heard about gostats that it work properly. Would you like to give me some suggestions about gostats.
Click to expand...

Hi John58975,
I used Gostats, it works much better than Google Analytics. It has some advanced new features. It's free and user friendly. It is easy to install.
 
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