: Unable to Filter Ghost Referrals in Google Analytics I set up a view level filter to remove ghost referral spam where the filter field ie Campaign Source and Filter Pattern is something like

@Barnes591

They use a vulnerability in Google Analytics to make fake visits so the only way to stop them for now, and until Google fix it, is to make a filter in GA since that is the source of the problem.

Blocking them in the .htaccess file is pointless since this kind of Spam never visits your site.

Check this answers for more information about this spam stackoverflow.com/a/29312117/3197362
And this for Referrer Spam in General and some methods you can use to filter them and stop future occurrences stackoverflow.com/a/28354319/3197362
As for the previous/historical data, you can use segments in Google analytics. Create a REGEX with the Spam names something like this:

social-buttons.com|simple-share-buttons.com


You can add as many as you want, but the REGEX has a 255 character limit. You can add multiple conditions if this happens


Go to the Reporting section in your Google Analytics.
In the lateral bar, expand Acquisitions > All Traffic and Select
Referrals.
In the main board Click on +Add Segment.
Click on New Segment.
Select Conditions Below Advanced.
Set filter as Exclude. Change Ad Content for Medium and contains for
exactly matches and type and select referral in the text box.
Click on AND
Change Ad Content for Source and contains for matches regex and paste
the Spam Regex.

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@Annie201

In Google Analytics, you can import segments builds by other advanced users. Try to import segments according to your configuration.

To get such configured segment, go to Add Segment, then Import from Gallery
and apply search filter "spam bots".

You will get the lists of segments developed by the community and use them as per your configuration.

If you able to learn from custom segment, you can improve it with more data and settings and contribute back to the community

In Imported Segments, you can analyse settings, applied filters and used advanced segments to develop next version of complex segments. This is continuous learning process.

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@Bryan171

Try escaping all the special characters in the expression
event-tracking.com Get-Free-Traffic-Now.com


There shouldn't be a problem filtering any referral if the expression matches it. Have you tried using a valid hostname filter instead.

One thing that all ghost spam have in common is that they use either a fake hostname or they leave it as not set, so if you create a filter with only your valid hostnames all ghost spam will be gone.

You can find more information about this solution in this related question
stackoverflow.com/a/28354319/3197362

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