: Diagnosing spike in 'direct traffic' in google analytics Recently ive seen a spike in the direct traffic in google analytics its up between 100-200% depending on what day you look at since last

@Bryan171

This is most likely ghost spam, lately the spammers have been hitting with direct visits along with the referral, probably as some kind of distraction.

If you have spam from one of the referrals ending with -buttons.com, then there is the problem. Here is an example:



This account is inactive so all of it is spam, 2 hits from referrals and 24 directs.



The usual way to stop it was creating a filter for the referral, but this won't stop the direct visit.

The best way to achieve this is by using a Valid Hostname Filter; this will stop any ghost spam even if it is referral, direct or keyword

You can find more information about this solution here:
stackoverflow.com/a/28354319/3197362 stackoverflow.com/a/30177813/3197362

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