Blocking seogoodhelper.com referrer spam in Google Analytics

Seogoodhelper.com is a domain name owned by Semalt.com that is used to promote their website by spamming your Google Analytics data with fake referral traffic. Semalt utilizes a blackhat tactic known as referrer spam to make it appear as if visitors were referred to your website from seogoodhelper.com; However, no visitors were actually referred to your site.

When your Google Analytics data is targeted by Semalt you will see referral traffic from seogoodhelper.com that lands on a page on your site that does not exist such as botcrawl.com/h/10016924.html. The referral traffic will also appear to come from a page that does not exist such as seogoodhelper.com/seo2.php.

The purpose of this referrer spam incident is to get your attention and persuade you to visit seogoodhelper.com in your browser. If you visit seogoodhelper.com you will be forwarded to another website such as http://seo2.sovarecycling.org.uk/?site=http://. The website asks you to “analyze your website and get an unlimited SEO checklist” and if you submit your website you will be forwarded to https://semalt.com/?s=http://[search term]&ref=test2 and then to https://semalt.com/project/[project ID].

Semalt heavily has been engaged in referrer spam indexing for many years. They are notorious for spamming Google Analytics data across the globe and it does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. According to records, they appear to purchase new domain names to spam with just about every weekday.

Referrer spam may seem harmless or simply a nuisance but it can actually ruin your Google Analytics data. For example, fake visitors from seogoodhelper.com appear to visit only one page on your site and leave from the same page which creates a 100% bounce rate and measures to 1 page per session. Visitors also average 00:00:00 length of a session among other metrics.

A website that does not care about ruining your Google analytics data and using obnoxious methods to gain your attention cannot be trusted.

Create a filter

Here’s how to create a campaign source filter to block all seogoodhelper.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 “seogoodhelper.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 seogoodhelper.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 | seogoodhelper.com