How to block ertelecom.ru referrer spam
Ertelecom.ru is a website that engages in a shameless blackhat SEO tactic known as referrer spam indexing. The spam URL that targets the analytical data of websites around the world. You may have noticed an increase in referral traffic from ertelecom.ru in your Google Analytics interface. Ertelecom.ru referral traffic is designed to promote the website spammers want people to visit and to essentially boost the spam URL’s rank in Google search result pages by creating backlinks off your website’s access logs.
Ertelecom.ru referral traffic and referrer spam in general is a growing problem. Referrer spam can ruin website data measured by Google Analytics and other analytical services. The website data it can affect includes everything measured in the Audience, Acquisition, and Behavior areas as calculated by Google Analytics. For example, Ertelecom.ru referrer spam can destroy your bounce rate because the spam URL typically only lands on a single webpage on your website and leaves your website from the same webpage. Referrer spam can also hit your website from sources around the world, from various resources, and more.
Quick Links
- What is Ertelecom.ru?
- How to block Ertelecom.ru referral spam in Google Analytics
- How to block Ertelecom.ru referral spam with your htaccess file
- How to block Ertelecom.ru referral spam with WP Referrer Spam Blocker plugin
What is Ertelecom.ru?
Ertelecom.ru is a URL that actively engages in referrer spam indexing tactics aimed at your website’s analytical data. Ertelecom.ru referrer spam is designed to hit your website with repeated requests at any given time and from any location around the world using traffic bots, computers infected with malicious software, and other blackhat SEO tactics. The benefits that referral spammers have by engaging in referrer spamming is that it will allow them advertise the website they want people to visit and it will improve the spammers search engine ranking by creating backlinks to their website off your website’s access log.
The downside to unwanted Ertelecom.ru referral traffic for website owners is that it can mess up the appropriate Google Analytics data and other website metrics provided by third-party services. In some cases it can also use up your website’s bandwidth by creating repeated site requests. However, this is not the case with this URL since it primarily generates ghost hits that do not actually land on your website.
Spammers target the referral traffic of your website for several reasons:
- Referrer spammers want to promote a webpage 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 bot and seen as a backlink to the spam site.
Ertelecom.ru referrer spam is not entirely dangerous to your website. 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 Ertelecom.ru referral spam in Google Analytics
To block Ertelecom.ru referral spam in Google Analytics follow the instructions below. Blocking Ertelecom.ru referrer spam in Google Analytics by creating an exclude filter will only mask the spam URL. To block the referrer spam URL at the sources see the instructions below to block Ertelecom.ru referrer spam using your website’s .htaccess file.
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 Ertelecom.ru 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 Ertelecom.ru and click the Save button on the bottom of the webpage.
How to block Ertelecom.ru referral spam with your .htaccess file
To block referrer spam at the source using your .htacess file add the code below to your .htaccess file. This method cannot be used to block Ertelecom.ru referrer spam at this time because the URL does not actually land on your website. This method can additionally be used for other URLs that engage in this tactic. We recommend to block this URL by following the instructions to create an exclude filter in Google Analytics.
## SITE REFERRER BANNING RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Ertelecom.ru [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Ertelecom.ru RewriteRule .* - [F]
How to block Ertelecom.ru referral spam with WP Referrer Spam Blocker plugin
Botcrawl.com has published a plugin for WordPress website called WP Referrer Spam Blocker. Our free Referrer Spam Blocker plugin for WordPress can be used to automatically block referrer spam URLs. This plugin cannot block Ertelecom.ru at this time because the URL creates ghost traffic and we cannot access your Google Analytics account to create an exclude filter but the plugin can still block other spammy URLs from accessing your Analytical data and website.
- Download Referrer Spam Blocker plugin for WordPress.
- Go to Plugins > Add New and click Upload Plugin.
- Click Choose File and select the referrer-spam-blocker.zip file and click Install Now.