How to block one-a-plus.xyz referrer spam in Google Analytics

One-a-plus.xyz is a new domain name owned by Semalt.com and used by them to spam your site’s Google Analytics data with fake referral traffic. Semalt is notorious for utilizing the frowned upon ‘referrer spam indexing’ method to attract online traffic and potential customers. They’ve been employing the blackhat SEO tactic for many years and don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

It’s not a great idea to visit one-a-plus.xyz. It’s just a spam site that tries to market online services to you. If you register your email address with them you’ll receive a large number of unwanted spam messages every day.

If you do visit one-a-plus.xyz you will be forwarded to http://seo2.k-test.co.uk/?site=http://. This page contains a place 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].

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 one-a-plus.xyz 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 one-a-plus.xyz. No one used your bandwidth or took a step onto your site’s server, so one-a-plus.xyz referral traffic is just filling your reports with false information.

Create a filter to block one-a-plus.xyz

Here’s how to create a campaign source filter to block all one-a-plus.xyz 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 “one-a-plus.xyz 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 one-a-plus.xyz 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 | one-a-plus.xyz