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This has been written about a few places, including Motherboard (where, full disclosure, I contribute): https://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-pro-trump-russia

This has been written about a few places, including Motherboard (where, full disclosure, I contribute): https://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-pro-trump-russian-is-spamming-google-analytics https://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-pro-trump-russian-is-... Not long after doing the interview with Vitaly, they had to write a follow-up because the original article ended up being used as GA spam: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/spammer-now-spamming-google-analytics-with-motherboard-article-on-spam http://motherboard.vice.com/read/spammer-now-spamming-google... That cycle has repeated itself a few times (The Next Web ran into something similar a month prior). To be honest, the real problem here, far as I can tell, is that Google hasn't figured out a way to make whitelisting traffic easy in Analytics. Most people don't use a tenth of GA's overall power, and as a result have no idea where to look when it comes to building out filters and such. Yes, those who seriously do analytics for a living know how to handle this, but the problem is, there are a lot of people who use GA because it "just works," and it doesn't do the job if someone's just throwing junk into the referrers. This problem is widespread and it depreciates the value of a fundamental Google product. Why is a company that's so good at filtering spam apparently ignoring the problem in this case?

thewhitetulip 10y ago
Exactly, I started using GA a few months back, have no clue how to filter this out.
- marktangotango 10y ago
  Add a filter that only allows data from your domain. I found this on a spammy content marketing site somewhere. I added this and haven't seen any referral spam since. I'm not sure what the pros and cons are, maybe someone here can elucidate? In GA: Admin -> All Filters -> Add Filter -> Predefined Filter Type -> Include Only -> Traffic to the hostname -> tha contains -> Enter your hostname in the text box ie mysite.com.
  - shortformblog 10y ago
    The fact that there are eight steps to get to your suggested solution only underlines my point that Google needs to create a simple solution to this problem. It should be three steps, tops. That said, there are some weaknesses to this solution. Here's why: For larger businesses, they may have multiple websites, and those websites may need to work together. Additionally, they may be using GA to track actions through an app, for example, or steps in a marketing process. This solution might generally work for individual blogs, but it gets hairy as your needs get more complex. And, as it turns out, the spam issues become more frustrating the more complex your setup gets.
    - corobo 10y ago
      It should be zero steps. They run Gmail, surely they have someone on staff that knows how to block spam? Even if it's an after-the-fact block and stats tidyup. Agreed, Google Analytics is basically worthless now unless you run a single site and have the time to set up filters every time some jackass gets by the ones already in place.
bhartzer 10y ago
Google Analytics already filters out fair amount of bot traffic from Google Analytics (compare your server log files with GA traffic and you'll see what I mean). Why they haven't tackled this problem is a mystery.
- enzanki_ars 10y ago
  The traffic mismatch is not due to any filtering by Google. Most people useing some sort of ad-blocking technology have Google Analytics blocked by default, preventing any traffic info being reported.

thewhitetulip 10y ago

Exactly, I started using GA a few months back, have no clue how to filter this out.

marktangotango 10y ago
Add a filter that only allows data from your domain. I found this on a spammy content marketing site somewhere. I added this and haven't seen any referral spam since. I'm not sure what the pros and cons are, maybe someone here can elucidate? In GA: Admin -> All Filters -> Add Filter -> Predefined Filter Type -> Include Only -> Traffic to the hostname -> tha contains -> Enter your hostname in the text box ie mysite.com.
- shortformblog 10y ago
  The fact that there are eight steps to get to your suggested solution only underlines my point that Google needs to create a simple solution to this problem. It should be three steps, tops. That said, there are some weaknesses to this solution. Here's why: For larger businesses, they may have multiple websites, and those websites may need to work together. Additionally, they may be using GA to track actions through an app, for example, or steps in a marketing process. This solution might generally work for individual blogs, but it gets hairy as your needs get more complex. And, as it turns out, the spam issues become more frustrating the more complex your setup gets.
  - corobo 10y ago
    It should be zero steps. They run Gmail, surely they have someone on staff that knows how to block spam? Even if it's an after-the-fact block and stats tidyup. Agreed, Google Analytics is basically worthless now unless you run a single site and have the time to set up filters every time some jackass gets by the ones already in place.

bhartzer 10y ago

Google Analytics already filters out fair amount of bot traffic from Google Analytics (compare your server log files with GA traffic and you'll see what I mean). Why they haven't tackled this problem is a mystery.

enzanki_ars 10y ago
The traffic mismatch is not due to any filtering by Google. Most people useing some sort of ad-blocking technology have Google Analytics blocked by default, preventing any traffic info being reported.