: Google Analytics referrerless ghost direct traffic This week Google Analytics' accuracy has taken a nose dive from its already very low starting point with dozens of alleged single hit sessions
This week Google Analytics' accuracy has taken a nose dive from its already very low starting point with dozens of alleged single hit sessions per day on the home pages of most of my sites with the following characteristics:
Source: direct
User Type: New Visitor
Service Provider: google inc.
Network domain: 1e100.net
Country: United States
City: not set
Browser: Chrome 40.0.2214.111
OS: Macintosh Intel 10.10
Screen resolution: not set
Like much of the sackload of referrer spam Google sees fit to let through each day, this traffic shows no sign of ever having visited my actual web server. It seems just like referrer spam without the referrer.
Should I:
a. Roll out yet more filters across each site, possibly targeting the screen resolution?
b. Give up on GA in favour of some recommended alternative?
c. Wait for Google to get bought by someone with experience in big data and pattern matching?
More posts by @Kristi941
1 Comments
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Lately, ghost spam has been hitting in pairs with direct visits along with referrals, probably as a distraction. I've noticed this behaviour with free-share-buttons but probably there are other spammers that are doing it.
So now the problem comes because before you add the referral to a filter to stop it, but this won't stop the direct visit just the referral. Now if you check the hostname of the of those fake direct visits, you will see that it is either not set or just some fake hostname.
Taking this as a base, if you add a filter that only include valid hostnames you will stop all ghost spam whether it shows as a referral, keyword, page or direct visit. This is just one filter that will replace all those single filters and doesn't require much maintenance.
You can find more information about the valid hostname filter here:
stackoverflow.com/a/28354319/3197362
And this article for more details about spam and fake direct visit
www.ohow.co/unusual-increase-in-direct-traffic-on-ga-spam/
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