How to block ads-seo-manager.com spam in Google Analytics

Ads-seo-manager.com is a domain name owned by Semalt.com and used by the site as eye-catching bait to catch your attention and persuade you to visit the URL.

When you visit ads-seo-manager.com you will be forwarded to http://seo2.webdesignnuke.com/?site=http:// which is a page that asks you to submit your website for a report. If you submit your site for a report, you will be forwarded to https://semalt.com/?s=http://[search term]&ref=test2 and then to https://semalt.com/project/[project ID]. where Semalt tries to get you to become a customer.

Semalt has shamelessly embraced the referrer spam indexing method as a way to advertise themselves for many years. The online SEO-type business is notorious for spamming Google Analytics with fake data including keywords as well and they don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

Is referrer spam harmful?

Referrer spam may seem harmless or simply a nuisance but it can actually ruin your Google Analytics data by filling it with fraudulent information. For example, fake visitors from ads-seo-manager.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.

Create a filter in Google Analytics

Here’s how to create a campaign source filter to block all ads-seo-manager.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 “ads-seo-manager.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 ads-seo-manager.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 | ads-seo-manager.com