How to block Audit-seo.net referral spam in Google Analytics
This page explains what audit-seo.net is, why audit-seo.net is spamming you with referrals and how to block audit-seo.net referrer spam in Google Analytics.
Audit-seo.net referral spam in Google Analytics
Audit-seo.net is a domain name associated with Semalt.com. Semalt is a blackhat SEO company with a low trust rating that has utilizes various referrer spam methods to advertise themselves in the past. Semalt uses the audit-seo.net domain name to market their website by spamming Google Analytics accounts around the world. They will employ various methods in order to make it look like someone was referred to your website from audit-seo.net; However, the traffic is actually fake and no one was referred from the URL.
Website owners and people who monitor Google Analytics data will notice real-time and historical referral traffic from audit-seo.net as if it is legitimate. 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 fake referral traffic from audit-seo.net they are might be suspicious as to why someone is visiting their website from audit-seo.net. Semalt uses this technique to trick people into searching for and visiting their website. Their website offers various questionable SEO services for purcahse.
Although this sort of traffic might sound innocent (or annoying), referrer spam can actually ruin your data and make it difficult to understand your website’s exact information. 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 webpage 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 audit-seo.net 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 Vc.ru 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 audit-seo.net 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 | Vc.ru
Campaign Referral Path Filter
A campaign referral path filter can be used to block single webpages.
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 Vc.ru 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 webpage
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
