How to block snip.tw referral spam in Google Analytics
How to block snip.tw referral spam in Google Analytics
Snip.tw is a referrer spam domain name similar to snip.to that used for various blackhat SEO purposes. The URL will usually show up as referral traffic in your Google Analytics data. The domain may have a string attached to it such as site5264824.snip.tw. Each URL on the snip.tw domain forwards to a different website which is being promoted by the referrer spam URL.
Snip.tw referrer spam is designed to mix deceptive and fraudulent web data into your Google Analytics account. The domain uses long eye-catching URLs in order provoke you to investigate the referral traffic and basically visit the website.
Referral traffic from this domain name does not actually land on your website. It is a type of web traffic known as ghost traffic that essentially targets your Google Analytics account and your website’s data. Snip.tw referrer spam attacks your website’s analytical data in order to promote the websites that URLS on the domain forward to. For example, snip.tw forwards to a different website each time you visit it including ultimatefontdownload.com; a webpage that sells a font package for around $20.000 USD Other URLs on this domain will forward to other websites.
Referrals from snip.tw in your Google Analytics data can be a bad thing. If you are someone who values your website’s appropriate data you will want to block snip.tw referral spam from junking-up your website’s analytical data before it gets out-of-hand. Referrer spam in general can ruin data with deceptive referral traffic. For example, snip.tw referrals normally “land” on a single webpage on your website and leave your website from the same page. This creates a 100% bounce rate and if this happens multiple times each day you may lose touch with your real bounce rate. This is not the only data affected by snip.tw referral spam. Data that this domain name and referrer spam from other spam URLs such as trafficgenius.xyz can affect includes pretty much every detail measured in Google Analytics Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions reports.
Quick Links
Associated URLs
- site5264824.snip.tw
- site25565005.snip.tw
- site65042465.snip.tw
- site-60404118-1.snip.tw
- site-44537612-1.snip.tw
- site-28709263-1.snip.tw
What is snip.tw?
Snip.tw is one of the latest referrer spam domains used to promote various websites. Snip.tw referrals will typically have a string attached to the URL such as site5264824.snip.tw. This traffic spams your Google Analytics data with deceptive and fraudulent referral traffic in order to promote websites that each URL forwards to.
Referrer spam is a desperate an unethical blackhat SEO tactic that has no regard for your website and your website’s data. Because of this it is recommended to avoid services and products promoted by referrer spammers.
Referrer spammers target the referral traffic of your website for several reasons:
- Referrer spammers want to promote a website and want you to visit the webpage or search for it online through Google search engine results pages.
- Referrer spammers want to boost their rank on Google search engine results pages by creating backlinks. They do this by logging requests into your website’s access log, which is then crawled by Google’s indexing bots and seen as a backlink to the spam site.
Snip.tw referrer spam is not entirely dangerous to your website like the way bad bots and spiders are. It will most likely not cause any trouble with how your website is accessed by your visitors or ranked by Google. However, in some cases referrer spam may use up your website’s bandwidth and CPU by creating multiple site requests to your website. In other cases, the spam URL is served to your analytical data by traffic bots which create ghost hits and never actually land on your website, which happens to be the case with this URL. They often target your GA ID number.
How to block snip.tw referral spam
This guide shows you how to block snip.tw referral spam in Google Analytics with a simple filter that stops snip.tw referrer spam at the source.
1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab and click All Filters.
2. Click the ADD FILTER button to create a new exclude filter.
3. Add Snip.tw or something you can easily remember as the Filter Name.
4. Select the Custom Filter Type.
5. In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Source in the list. In the Filter Pattern text box, add snip.tw and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the webpage. To add multiple URLs to the same filter you can make a Filter Pattern similar to this with a | between each URL: example.com | snip.tw
