How to block fast-seo-links.com in Google Analytics

Fast-seo-links.com is a domain name used by Semalt.com to spam your Google Analytics reports with fake referral traffic. The reason why Semalt does this is to promote their website and services.

Once you notice that your website is getting referral traffic from fast-seo-links.com you might be curious as to what the website is. If you visit fast-seo-links.com you will be forwarded to http://seo2.jenshelleyweddings.com/?site=http://. The page you land on asks you to submit your own website for a report. 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 has been fully engulfed in embracing the referrer spam indexing method as a way to advertise themselves for many years. The online 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 fast-seo-links.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 to block fast-seo-links.com

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