Original-paintingsor.info
Learn what original-paintingsor.info is, why it’s spamming you, and how to block it in Google Analytics.
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What is Original-paintingsor.info?
Original-paintingsor.info is a domain name that promotes an online shop called texturetsunami.com by use of referrer spam indexing. The original-paintingsor.info domain name is used to spam your Google Analytics data with fake referral traffic in order to get your attention and persuade you to visit the URL in your browser. It will appear as if someone visited your website from original-paintingsor.info even though they really didn’t.
If you visit original-paintingsor.info you will be forwarded to https://www.texturetsunami.com/. Texturetsunami.com is an online store and gallery that spams your Google Analytics data to promote itself.
The online business behind original-paintingsor.info employs various blackhat methods to make it appear as if someone was referred to your website from the domain name. However, no visitor was actually referred to the website from the URL. It is simply a gimmick to persuade you to visit the URL in your browser so you can view their online services.
Website owners and other people who monitor Google Analytics data will notice real-time and historical referral traffic coming from original-paintingsor.info mixed in with real analytical data. Most of the time the spam will make it appear as if someone was referred to your website multiple times in order to position the referral traffic data at the top of the accumulated list in your reports.
When a website owner or someone monitoring the data sees the large amount of referral traffic from original-paintingsor.info they might be suspicious as to why someone is visiting their website from a page on the original-paintingsor.info website. The website uses this technique to dupe people into searching for the website on a search engine such as Google and visiting the website by typing it into the address bar in order to obtain potential customers.
Although this sort of traffic might sound innocent, referrer spam can actually ruin your website’s analytical data and make it difficult to understand your website’s exact traffic metrics. The traffic acquired from fake referrals can affect most of the data in your GA reports. For example, the fake referrals will appear to land on a single web page on your website and leave from the same website and this will create a 100% bounce rate. If your website is targeted by referrer spammers you may not be able to identify your website’s actual bounce rate unless you filter the traffic out.
Campaign Source Filter
A campaign source filter can be used to block all original-paintingsor.info referral traffic in Google Analytics.
1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab > Click Filters on the right side in the VIEW section.
2. Click the + ADD FILTER button to create a new exclude filter.
3. Add original-paintingsor.info or something you can easily remember as the Filter Name.
4. Select the Custom Filter Type.
5. In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Source in the list. In the Filter Pattern text box, add original-paintingsor.info and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the webpage. To add multiple URLs to the same filter you can make a Filter Pattern similar to this with a | between each URL: Example.com | Example\.com | original-paintingsor.info
Campaign Referral Path Filter
A campaign referral path filter can be used to block single webpages.
1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab > Click Filters on the right side in the VIEW section.
2. Click the + ADD FILTER button to create a new exclude filter.
3. Add original-paintingsor.info or something you can easily remember as the Filter Name.
4. Select the Custom Filter Type.
5. In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Referral Path in the list. In the Filter Pattern text box, add a permalink from the referred URL and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the webpage
Language Settings Filter
Some spam may appear in your language settings as keywords, phrases, and searched terms. A language settings filter can be used to block language spam in Google Analytics.
1. Log in to your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab
2. In the “View” column select Filters and then click + Add Filter
3. Add a Filter Name: Language Spam (or something you can easily remember)
4. Go to: Filter Type > Custom > Exclude
5. Select Filter Field: Language settings
6. Add a Filter Pattern: \s[^s]*\s|.{15,}|\.|,
7. Click on the blue text that says Verify this filter to see a preview table of how this filter will work in your account. You should only see language spam on the left side of the table: filter-verification-language-spam
8. After you verify the filter click the Save button on the bottom of the page
Hi Sean,
Thank you so much for posting this article. The oddest thing is that the traffic referred by original-paintingsor.info/Texture Tsunami actually resulted in my client getting phone calls that are legitimate leads. Granted, they’re not for the part of his business that’s the most lucrative, so he started getting annoyed, which is how I found out about it, but what I want to know is how that happened. I did put the filters on, and I reported the url as spam to Google, but I’m concerned my client will continue to get a lot of calls. Mostly, I’m curious to know how people from the correct geographical area who actually want kitchen cabinets painted got to that particular page on his website. I wish I could get them to the interior or exterior painting pages because that’s what would make him more money. Thank you in advance for your time.
Hello, I can’t explain why he might be getting more leads but I can take a wild guess. It is possible that his content is being searched for and found in search results. His content might be ranking higher for some reason or people are becoming more interested.
I do find it very unlikely that original-paintingsor.info is the cause of the phone calls. From what I understand, referral traffic from original-paintingsor.info is automatic ghost traffic. No one was actually referred to the site from original-paintingsor.info. The referral traffic only targets and shows up in Google Analytics data.
Thank you so much for posting this useful information. We have recently got the referrer traffic from this site. When we checked this domain name they redirected to some other url. They seem to be looking like an original traffic source, but when we research on Google about it, we find your great article on it. Now I have blocked this domain. Thanks again for helping us.
Thank you so much for posting this handy guide. I was just checking my analytics and used your guide to filter out the same web address. Much appreciated. 🙂
Thanks for this!
Thank you Sean. I got lots of traffic exactly from that site. Now, I know it is something that needs to be filtered our from Google Analytics. For sure, I will follow your detailed instruction.
helpful blog for exclude spam traffic from google analytics