: Why is a message showing in Google Analytics language column? Today, I watched my website statistics, and I saw there a language called: <URL Redacted> You are invited! Enter only with

@Debbie626

Google Analytics Spam is linking to THIS discussion thread now. If you got to this thread because you saw a referral in your Google Analytics, YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED. Check the Language for those referrals ("...Vote for Trump"), then read this article for the details and a filtering solution: www.analyticsedge.com/2016/11/heres-a-secret-%C9%A2oogle-com-is-not-google-com/
The updated article now links to this solution:
help.analyticsedge.com/spam-filter/definitive-guide-to-removing-google-analytics-spam/

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@Ann8826881

You can ignore this. It has no impact on your site.¹

What is happening?

When requesting resources from your site, clients (i.e., bots, humans using a browser, …) can send additional request headers (e.g., User-Agent, Referer, Accept) with values of their choice.

The Accept-Language request header tells the server which language(s) are acceptable for the client. Now, instead of sending expected values like en or en;q=0.8, de;q=0.7, a client could as well send a value like I like fruits.

If an applications makes use of these values (and if it doesn’t dismiss invalid ones), it might end up showing these. Which is the case for server logs, or, like in your case, Google Analytics.

Why is this happening?

Authors of the request probably want to lure people to their site. Either in the hope that the logs get published somehow (getting backlinks), or in the hope that website owners find these values in their logs/applications and get curious.

See the Wikipedia page about referer spam. Same idea, different header (Referer).

Note about your case: The second-level domain is not Google.com, but ɢoogle.com (using a "ɢ" instead of a "G").



¹ Unless you (or the applications you use) parse/use these values without having security in mind. They could as well contain JavaScript code etc.

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