Block “6hopping.com” referral spam in Google Analytics

6hopping.com is a domain name that engages in the blackhat SEO tactic known as referrer spam. If you notice 6hopping.com referral traffic and other data from the domain name mixed into your Google Analytics reports it means that your Google Analytics account is being targeted by spammers.

6hopping.com referral spam may appear in your Google Analytics reports from a path such as forum.topic57522260.6hopping.com. The referral spam wants it to appear as if someone was referred to your website from a forum topic; However, no one was referred to your website from 6hopping.com. No one even took a step on your website’s server. Web traffic from 6hopping.com does not actually land on your website. It only appears in your Google Analytics reports. This is a type of web traffic commonly known as ghost traffic.

Why is 6hopping.com spamming my website?

The reason why 6hopping.com is spamming your website’s Google Analytics data is to get your attention and aggressively persuade you to visit the URL in your web browser. If you visit the URL you will be directed to a 0-0-8-0-0 project search engine that is owned by a party who often utilizes the referrer spam tactic to promote various webpages.

We do not recommend websites that engage in referrer spam. Referrer spam is a blackhat SEO tactic that completely disregards your website’s data in order to desperately and recklessly promote online content.

Referrer spammers typically target your website’s data 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.

Is 6hopping.com referral spam harmful?

6hopping.com referral spam is not essentially harmful to your website and it will not affect your rank in Google Search Results Pages; However, 6hopping.com referrer spam can ruin the data collected in your Google Analytics reports if you do not block it from targeting your account. For example, if 6hopping.com referrals appear to land on a single webpage on your website and leave from the same website it will create a 100% bounce rate. If your website is targeted by referrer spammers you may not be able to identify your website’s bounce rate. The same can be said about other data measured in most Google Analytics reports.

How to block 6hopping.com referral spam in Google Analytics

These instructions show you how to block 6hopping.com referral spam and other referrer spam URLs in Google Analytics by creating an exclude filter. This is the method recommended by Google to block this type of referrer traffic.

1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab. Click All Filters on the left side.

2. Click the + ADD FILTER button to create a new filter.

3. Add 6hopping.com or something else that you can remember as the Filter Name. If you plan to add more spam URLs to the list you can name the list something like “Referrer Spam Filter.”

4. Select the Custom Filter Type from the two options.

5. In Filter Field Field select Campaign Source.

6. In the Filter Pattern box, add 6hopping.com 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 | example.com | 6hopping.com

6hopping.com WHOIS information

Domain Name: 6HOPPING.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1855834288_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.tldregistrarsolutions.com
Registrar URL: http://www.tldregistrarsolutions.com
Updated Date: 2016-04-15T09:15:39Z
Creation Date: 2014-04-23T09:51:10Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-04-23T09:51:10Z
Registrar: TLD Registrar Solutions Ltd.
Registrar IANA ID: 1564
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@tldregistrarsolutions.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.5167401179
Reseller: 
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited - http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: 
Registrant Name: Vitaly Popov
Registrant Organization: 
Registrant Street: Aurory 70-141
Registrant City: Samara
Registrant State/Province: 
Registrant Postal Code: 443070
Registrant Country: RU
Registrant Phone: +7.9608143259
Registrant Phone Ext: 
Registrant Fax: 
Registrant Fax Ext: 
Registrant Email: povitaly@mail.ru
Registry Admin ID: 
Admin Name: Vitaly Popov
Admin Organization: 
Admin Street: Aurory 70-141
Admin City: Samara
Admin State/Province: 
Admin Postal Code: 443070
Admin Country: RU
Admin Phone: +7.9608143259
Admin Phone Ext: 
Admin Fax: 
Admin Fax Ext: 
Admin Email: povitaly@mail.ru
Registry Tech ID: 
Tech Name: Vitaly Popov
Tech Organization: 
Tech Street: Aurory 70-141
Tech City: Samara
Tech State/Province: 
Tech Postal Code: 443070
Tech Country: RU
Tech Phone: +7.9608143259
Tech Phone Ext: 
Tech Fax: 
Tech Fax Ext: 
Tech Email: povitaly@mail.ru
Name Server: ns-canada.topdns.com
Name Server: ns-uk.topdns.com
Name Server: ns-usa.topdns.com
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2016-04-17T22:00:08Z <<<

6hopping.com Technical Information

Registrar: TLD REGISTRAR SOLUTIONS LTD
Whois Server: whois.tldregistrarsolutions.com
Creation Date: 23-APR-2014
Updated Date: 15-APR-2016
Expiration Date: 23-APR-2017

Nameserver: NS-CANADA.TOPDNS.COM
Nameserver: NS-UK.TOPDNS.COM
Nameserver: NS-USA.TOPDNS.COM

Registry Status: clientTransferProhibited