Home » Blog » Spam » What is 17-reasons-for-seo.com and how do I block it?
17-reasons-for-seo.com referrer spam

What is 17-reasons-for-seo.com and how do I block it?

17-reasons-for-seo.com referrer spam

17-reasons-for-seo.com


Learn what 17-reasons-for-seo.com is, why the domain is spamming your website, and how to block 17-reasons-for-seo.com referral traffic in Google Analytics.

Links on this page

What is 17-reasons-for-seo.com?


17-reasons-for-seo.com is a referrer spam domain used by Semalt.com to market their website and services. Semalt employs the 17-reasons-for-seo.com domain name to make it appear as if someone was referred to your website from http://17-reasons-for-seo.com/seo2.php in order to provoke you to visit the URL in your browser.

If you try to visit http://17-reasons-for-seo.com/seo2.php in your browser, you won’t go anywhere. There is nowhere to land because the domain name is not hosted. However, if you go to http://17-reasons-for-seo.com/ you will be forwarded to http://seo2.agentsofchangedocumentary.com/?site=http:// (or a similar site). This new page has content on it that says “get your free website audit now” and “discover your website potential for free.” There is also a search field to input your website and if you submit your website and click the ‘START NOW’ button you will be forwarded to https://semalt.com/?s=http://[search term]&ref=test2 and then to https://semalt.com/project/[project ID]. Semalt uses these pages to obtain your information such as your email address and access to your social media accounts and bolster their questionable online marketing services.

Semalt has been using the referrer spam method for many years and it doesn’t seem like they will ever stop. It’s how people know who they are even if they don’t view them pleasantly. Previous domain names you might have seen in your Google Analytics data associated with Semalt include 15-reasons-for-seo.com99-reasons-for-seo.com100-reasons-for-seo.com12-reasons-for-seo.comlocal-seo-for-multiple-locations.comautoseo-b2b-seo-service.comseo-services-wordpress.comseo-services-b2b.comautoseo-wordpress-services.comseo-wordpress-analytics.comseo-for-wordpress.comanalytics-for-seo.comautoseo-trial-for-1.comseo-helper.orgfree-seo-consultation.comget-seo-help.comseo-services-with-results.comfree-seo-help.org, better-seo-promotion.com, and many more.

Website owners and other people who monitor Google Analytics data will notice real-time and historical referral traffic coming from 17-reasons-for-seo.com 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 17-reasons-for-seo.com they might be suspicious as to why someone is visiting their website from a  page on the 17-reasons-for-seo.com website. As partially mentioned before, the website uses this spamming 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 harmless, 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 17-reasons-for-seo.com 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 17-reasons-for-seo.com 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 17-reasons-for-seo.com and click the blue Save button on the bottom of the web page. 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 | 17-reasons-for-seo.com

Campaign Referral Path Filter


A campaign referral path filter can be used to block single web pages if a site is targeting you from a single page.

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 17-reasons-for-seo.com 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 web page

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 FieldLanguage 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

Jared Harrison

Jared Harrison is an accomplished tech author and entrepreneur, bringing forth over 20 years of extensive expertise in cybersecurity, privacy, malware, Google Analytics, online marketing, and various other tech domains. He has made significant contributions to the industry and has been featured in multiple esteemed publications. Jared is widely recognized for his keen intellect and innovative insights, earning him a reputation as a respected figure in the tech community.

More Reading

Post navigation

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Block Bestchoice.cf referrer spam in Google Analytics

How to block social-traffic-4.xyz referrer spam

How to Block Compliance-andrew.xyz Referral Traffic