Stop wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam
If you have notice a large increase of referral traffic from wpthemedetector.co.uk and other websites you’re not alone. Wpthemedetector.co.uk is a website that targets your analytical data in order to promote the website and boost their appearance in Google results pages. Spam URLs like wpthemedetector.co.uk often create backlinks off of your website’s access logs in order to create backlinks and boost their rank. This is a tactic known as referrer spam.
Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral traffic can destroy your website’s analytical data measured by Google Analytics. The website data it can affect includes everything measured in the Audience, Acquisition, and Behavior sections. For example, wpthemedetector.co.uk referrer spam can destroy your bounce rate because the spam URL usually only lands on a single webpage on your website and leaves your website from the same webpage. Referrer spam can also hit your website with referral traffic from sources around the world, from various resources, and more.
Quick Links
- What is Wpthemedetector.co.uk?
- How to block Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam in Google Analytics
- How to block Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam with your htaccess file
- How to block Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam with WP Referrer Spam Blocker plugin
What is Wpthemedetector.co.uk?
Wpthemedetector.co.uk is a URL that actively engages in referrer spam indexing tactics aimed at your website’s analytical data. Wpthemedetector.co.uk referrer spam is designed to hit your website with repeated requests at any given time and from any location around the world using traffic bots, computers infected with malicious software, and other blackhat SEO tactics. The benefits that referral spammers have by engaging in referrer spamming is that it will allow them advertise the website they want people to visit and it will improve the spammers search engine ranking by creating backlinks to their website off your website’s access log.
The downside to unwanted wpthemedetector.co.uk referral traffic for website owners is that it can mess up the appropriate Google Analytics data and other website metrics provided by third-party services. In some cases it can also use up your website’s bandwidth by creating repeated site requests. However, this is not the case with this URL since it primarily generates ghost hits that do not actually land on your website.
Furthermore, wpthemedetector.co.uk is a website that can be used to detect what themes certain WordPress websites are using. It can allow you to download the themes too. However, there is a catch! The website will contain affiliate links to Envato Markerplace websites and other locations in order to gather commission from potential theme purchases. The website will also place cookies on your computer in order to track you and future purchases.
Spammers target the referral traffic of your website for several reasons:
- Referrer spammers want to promote a webpage and want you to visit the webpage or search for it online through Google search engine results pages.
- Referrer spammers want to boost their rank on Google search engine results pages by creating backlinks. They do this by logging requests into your website’s access log, which is then crawled by Google bot and seen as a backlink to the spam site.
Wpthemedetector.co.uk 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 referrer 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 served to your analytical data by traffic bots which create ghost hits and never actually land on your website, which happens to be the case with this URL. They often target your GA ID number.
How to block Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam in Google Analytics
To block wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam in Google Analytics follow the instructions below. Blocking wpthemedetector.co.uk 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 see the instructions below to block wpthemedetector.co.uk referrer spam using your website’s .htaccess file.
1. Open your Google Analytics account and go to the Admin tab and click All Filters.
2. Click the ADD FILTER button to create a new exclude filter.
3. Add wpthemedetector.co.uk 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 wpthemedetector.co.uk and click the Save button on the bottom of the webpage.
How to block Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam with your .htaccess file
To block referrer spam at the source using your .htacess file add the code below to your .htaccess file.
## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} wpthemedetector.co.uk [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} wpthemedetector.co.uk
RewriteRule .* - [F]
How to block Wpthemedetector.co.uk referral spam with WP Referrer Spam Blocker plugin
Botcrawl.com has published a plugin for WordPress website called WP Referrer Spam Blocker. Our free Referrer Spam Blocker plugin for WordPress can be used to automatically block referrer spam URLs.
- Download Referrer Spam Blocker plugin for WordPress.
- Go to Plugins > Add New and click Upload Plugin.
- Click Choose File and select the referrer-spam-blocker.zip file and click Install Now.
