Just about every day Semalt.com purchases a new domain name and uses it to referrer spam your Google Analytics data with fake referral traffic. Semalt makes it look like as if someone was referred to your website from 1-do-now.com even though no one actually was. This is a type of web traffic known as ghost traffic and the purpose of it in this scenario is to obtain your attention and persuade you to visit 1-do-now.com.
It’s not recommended to visit 1-do-now.com because the primary purpose of the domain name is to spam you and potentially harm your Google Analytics data. However, if you do visit 1-do-now.com you will be forwarded to a website such as http://seo2.vidaalarms.com/?site=http://, http://seo2.homesbyweb.co.uk/?site=http://get-here-web, http://seo2.bournemouthkawasakiracing.co.uk/?site=http://, http://seo2.inkstoneeditorial.com/?site=http://, http://seo2.clientsothersite.com/?site=http://, or other. The page you are forwarded to contains a text field where you can submit your website for an audit and 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].
Semalt will then attempt to obtain information about you and get you to link a social media account to their website. If you provide Semalt with your email address you will receive deceptive spam messages from Semalt each day so I suggest that you don’t give them a way to contact you.
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 1-do-now.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 1-do-now.com. No one used your bandwidth or took a step onto your site’s server, so 1-do-now.com referral traffic is just filling your reports with false information.
How to create a filter
Here’s how to create a campaign source filter to block all 1-do-now.com referral traffic in Google Analytics.
- Open your Google Analytics account and go to Admin > Filters (on the right side in the VIEW section).
- Click the + ADD FILTER button.
- Create a Filter Name such as “1-do-now.com filter” or “Semalt filter.”
- Select the Custom Filter Type.
- In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Source.
- In the Filter Pattern text box, add 1-do-now.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 | 1-do-now.com
Leave a Comment