How to stop sharebutton.to referral spam

How to stop sharebutton.to referral spam

Sharebutton.to referral spam (also known as referrer spam) is a very big issue for a lot of webmasters, website owners, and those who provide website services for clients new to the field. Sharebutton.to referral spam in Google Analytics is a concern because it can mess with your Audience, Acquisition, and Behavior analytical website data provided by Google Analytics, such as the bounce rate because. The spam URLs used to promote the website affect the bounce rate because the spam URLs only lands on a single webpage and leaves from the same webpage. Sharebutton.to referral traffic can also use up a website’s bandwidth and cause confusion for new website owners who don’t know why they’re getting referral traffic from sharebutton.to.

sharebutton.to referral spam

This guide will help you block sharebutton.to referral spam in Google Analytics and block sharebutton.to referrer spam at the source using your website’s .htaccess file in order to stop receiving sharebutton.to referral traffic.

What is sharebutton.to?

sharebutton.to is a website that engages in referrer spam indexing tactics aimed at your website analytical data. sharebutton.to referrer spam is designed to create repeated site requests to the website it lands on. The benefits that referral spammers have with this tactic is that it will help them advertise the website they want people to visit and it will also improve the spammers search engine ranking. The downside is that some referrals from sharebutton.to can interfere with Google Analytics data and other metrics, as well as use a website’s bandwidth by creating repeat requests.

Why is sharebutton.to referral traffic appearing in Google Analytics?

Referrer spam is a very questionable tactic used to promote online content. Spammers target your website’s analytical data for several reasons:

  • Spammers want to promote a specific webpage or program and want webmasters to visit the webpage or search for it online and visit it through Google results pages.
  • Spammers want to boost their rank in Google Search and acquire backlinks.

Sharebutton.to referrer spam is not entirely dangerous to your website. It will most likely not cause any trouble with how your website is accessed by your visitors or ranked by Google. However, in some cases sharebutton.to spam may use up your website’s bandwidth and CPU by creating multiple site requests to your website. In other cases, the spam URL is promoted by traffic bots which create ghost hits and never actually land on your website.

How to stop sharebutton.to referrer spam in Google Analytics

To stop sharebutton.to referral spam in Google Analytics follow the instructions below. Blocking sharebutton.to referrer spam in Google Analytics by creating an exclude filter will only mask the spam URL. To block the referrer spam URL at the sources please see the instructions below to block sharebutton.to referrer spam using your website’s .htaccess file.

1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab and click All Filters.

how to block referrer spam

2. Click the New Filter button to create a new filter.

block referrer spam

3. Add sharebutton.to as the Filter Name.

4. Select the Custom Filter Type.

block referrer spam google analytics

5. In Filter Field, find and select Campaign Source in the list. In the Filter Pattern text box, add sharebutton.to and click the Save button on the bottom of the webpage.

How to stop sharebutton.to referrer spam using your .htaccess file

To stop sharebutton.to referral spam at the source using your .htacess file add the code below to your .htaccess file.

## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} sharebutton.to [NC,OR]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Sean Doyle

Sean is a distinguished tech author and entrepreneur with over 20 years of extensive experience in cybersecurity, privacy, malware, Google Analytics, online marketing, and various other tech domains. His expertise and contributions to the industry have been recognized in numerous esteemed publications. Sean is widely acclaimed for his sharp intellect and innovative insights, solidifying his reputation as a leading figure in the tech community. His work not only advances the field but also helps businesses and individuals navigate the complexities of the digital world.

6 Responses

  1. bogdan says:

    thank you, very helpful

  2. Aaron says:

    Wanted to add the NGINX configuration too – for those of us who don’t use Apache (and thus the .htaccess file):

    # nginx configuration
    location / {
    if ($http_referer ~* “sharebutton.to”){
    return 403;
    }
    }

  3. Steve Sims - Freelance Website Designer says:

    Thanks Sean – I have applied the Google Analytics fix to my website.

  4. Mathijs Segers says:

    When I add the .htaccess part everything gets blocked, not just referer sharebutton.to

    Not sure why I’m no htaccess guru

    • Anonymous says:

      Maybe its the entry having the “OR” part of [NC, OR] will block the RewriteRule. So, remove the OR portion and leave the NC. If you have multiple entries, leave the OR statement on all of them except for the last entry before the rewrite rule.

      ## SITE REFERRER BANNING
      RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} sharebutton.to [NC,OR]
      RewriteRule .* – [F]

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