How to block big-seo-deal.com spam in Google Analytics

Big-seo-deal.com is a domain name owned by Semalt.com that spams your site’s Google Analytics data with fake referral traffic in order to get your attention and persuade you to visit the URL in your browser.

When you visit big-seo-deal.com you will be forwarded to http://seo2.titan-row.org/?site=http:// which contains a place you can submit your website for an audit. If you submit your site, you will be forwarded to https://semalt.com/?s=http://[search term]&ref=test2 and then to https://semalt.com/project/[project ID]. where Semalt tries to sell you their services.

Referrer spam is nothing new for Semalt, they’ve been partaking in the blackhat SEO tactic for many years and don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. They purchase and use new domain names like big-seo-deal.com approximately every business day which can make it difficult to keep track of your website’s real data.

Is referrer spam harmful?

Referrer spam may seem harmless or somewhat of a nuisance but it can actually ruin your Google Analytics data by manufacturing incorrect information. For example, fake visitors from big-seo-deal.com appear to visit only one page on your site and leave your site from the same page. This creates a 100% bounce rate and measures to 1 page per session. Visitors also average 00:00:00 length of a session, among other changes to various site metrics.

Also, keep in mind that no one was actually referred to your website from big-seo-deal.com. No one used your bandwidth or took a step onto your site’s server, so big-seo-deal.com referral traffic is just filling your reports with false information.

Create a filter to block big-seo-deal.com

Here’s how to create a campaign source filter to block all big-seo-deal.com referral traffic in Google Analytics.

1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to Admin > Filters (on the right side in the VIEW section).
2. Click the + ADD FILTER button.
3. Create a Filter Name such as “big-seo-deal.com filter” or “Semalt filter.”
4. Select the Custom Filter Type.
5. In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Source.
6. In the Filter Pattern text box, add big-seo-deal.com and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the web page.

To add multiple domain names to the same filter you can make a Filter Pattern similar to this with a | between each URL: Example.com | Example\.com | big-seo-deal.com