How to filter autoseo-trial-for-1.com spam in Google Analytics
Autoseo-trial-for-1.com
Learn what autoseo-trial-for-1.com is, why they’re referrer spamming you, and how to filter autoseo-trial-for-1.com referral traffic in Google Analytics.
Links on this page
What is Autoseo-trial-for-1.com?
Autoseo-trial-for-1.com is a domain named owned by a questionable online marketing website called Semalt.com. Semalt uses autoseo-trial-for-1.com to promote their online Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services by utilizing of a blackhat tactic called referrer spam indexing. This blackhat tactic allows the SEO site to spam your Google Analytics data with fake referral traffic in an attempt to get your attention and potentially persuade you to visit their website and become a customer.
It will appear as if someone was referred to your website from autoseo-trial-for-1.com and landed on a page on your site such as yoursite.com/h/10016924.html. However, it’s just a trick. The page does not exist on your site and no one was actually referred to your site from autoseo-trial-for-1.com.
Autoseo-trial-for-1.com is a domain that will forward you to http://seo2.life-serious-business.co.uk/?site=http:// (or another similar site). This page says “get your free website audit now” and contains a search field to input your website. If you submit your website and click ‘START NOW’ you will then be forwarded to https://semalt.com/rankings. Semalt uses these pages to obtain your information such as your email address and access to your social media accounts and bolster their questionable online marketing services.
Semalt has been using the referrer spam method for many years. Previous domain names you might have seen in your Google Analytics data include seo-helper.org, free-seo-consultation.com, get-seo-help.com, seo-services-with-results.com, free-seo-help.org, better-seo-promotion.com, and many more.
Website owners and other people who monitor Google Analytics data will notice real-time and historical referral traffic coming from autoseo-trial-for-1.com mixed in with real analytical data. Most of the time the spam will make it appear as if someone was referred to your website multiple times in order to position the referral traffic data at the top of the accumulated list in your reports.
When a website owner or someone monitoring the data sees the large amount of referral traffic from autoseo-trial-for-1.com they might be suspicious as to why someone is visiting their website from a page on the autoseo-trial-for-1.com website. As partially mentioned before, the website uses this spamming technique to dupe people into searching for the website on a search engine such as Google and visiting the website by typing it into the address bar in order to obtain potential customers.
Although this sort of traffic might sound harmless, referrer spam can actually ruin your website’s analytical data and make it difficult to understand your website’s exact traffic metrics. The traffic acquired from fake referrals can affect most of the data in your GA reports. For example, the fake referrals will appear to land on a single web page on your website and leave from the same website and this will create a 100% bounce rate. If your website is targeted by referrer spammers you may not be able to identify your website’s actual bounce rate unless you filter the traffic out.
Campaign Source Filter
A campaign source filter can be used to block all autoseo-trial-for-1.com referral traffic in Google Analytics.
1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab > Click Filters on the right side in the VIEW section.
2. Click the + ADD FILTER button to create a new exclude filter.
3. Add autoseo-trial-for-1.com 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 autoseo-trial-for-1.com and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the web page. To add multiple URLs to the same filter you can make a Filter Pattern similar to this with a | between each URL: Example.com | Example\.com | autoseo-trial-for-1.com
Campaign Referral Path Filter
A campaign referral path filter can be used to block single web pages.
1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab > Click Filters on the right side in the VIEW section.
2. Click the + ADD FILTER button to create a new exclude filter.
3. Add autoseo-trial-for-1.com or something you can easily remember as the Filter Name.
4. Select the Custom Filter Type.
5. In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Referral Path in the list. In the Filter Pattern text box, add a permalink from the referred URL and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the web page
Language Settings Filter
Some spam may appear in your language settings as keywords, phrases, and searched terms. A language settings filter can be used to block language spam in Google Analytics.
1. Log in to your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab
2. In the “View” column select Filters and then click + Add Filter
3. Add a Filter Name: Language Spam (or something you can easily remember)
4. Go to: Filter Type > Custom > Exclude
5. Select Filter Field: Language settings
6. Add a Filter Pattern: \s[^s]*\s|.{15,}|\.|,
7. Click on the blue text that says Verify this filter to see a preview table of how this filter will work in your account. You should only see language spam on the left side of the table: filter-verification-language-spam
8. After you verify the filter click the Save button on the bottom of the page
