How to Block WordPress Referrer Spam in Google Analytics

Are you getting a lot of referrer spam in your Google analytics? Referrer spam is a way to pass fake referer information to websites. These spammy links then appear in a users analytics and can lead you to click on malicious websites. In this article, we will show you how to effectively block WordPress referrer spam in Google Analytics.

Getting Started With Google Analytics
If you are not using Google Analytics on your WordPress site, thenyou should check out our guide on how toinstall Google Analytics in WordPress.

Google Analytics is an awesome free tool that allows you to see how users interact with your website. You can see which pages users are visiting,track clicks on links,run split tests, and much more. See this beginner’s guide on how to use Google Analytics for your WordPress site.

For those of you who are already using Google Analytics, let’s fix the referrer spam problem in your Google Analytics reports.

What is Referrer Spam?We all want our websites to be noticed. It makes us happy when other websites link to our articles. Referral spammers take advantage of this desire by sending fake referer URL with automated scripts to thousands of websites.

This URL then appears in your Google analytics or any other stats service you are using as referrers. Considering the fact that they affect millions of websites, it is likely that many users may want to explore these sites when they see them in their referral reports.

Why You Need to Worry About Referer Spam
Some might say that referrer spam is quite harmless unless you click on the links. Well let’s assume that you won’t click on those links, there are still other downsides.If you are small or medium sized website, then referer spam can ruin your sites analytics reports.

If you decide to sell your website and share this report with interested buyers, these spam links can leave a bad impression on them.

How We Deal With Referrer Spam?
We use Sucurito monitor our website’s security. Sucurinot only only protects our website against malware and trojans, it also blocks referrer spam. SucuriWebsite Firewall blocks most known bad referrals by default. Their team is always adding new referral spammers to the list and actively monitoring their behavior.

Blocking Referrer Spam in WordPress Using Plugin
There are several WordPress plugins that can help you keep referrer spam to a bare minimum. These plugins use web services that are actively monitoring referral spam websites and use that list to block referral spam.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Spam Referrer Blockplugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Spam Referrer Block to configure the plugin. On the plugin’s settings page, you will see a text area to  create your own custom blocking lists.

Below that you will see the list of sites this plugin is actively monitoring and blocking. You can update this list with the most up to date version by clicking on the download from server button. If you see a referrer spam link in your Analytics account that is not listed on this page, then you can add it to the custom blacklist.

Click on the save button and plugin will start blocking it.You can also share your custom blacklist with the rest of the internet community by clicking on the upload to server button at the bottom of the page.

Block Ghost Referrals Using Google Analytics Filtering
Despite implementing these solutions, you will still see some referrer spam in your Analytics reports. These websites are not visiting your site at all, so Sucurior any other tool cannot block them.

They are sending their requests directly to Google Analytics using your UA Tracking code. This tracking code is used by Google Analytics to identify your website. Most site owners add it to their WordPress site’s footer or header section. Anyone can look at this code and use the UA tracking id to generate referrer spam.

Here is how you can block such websites in Google Analytics itself. Login to the Google Analytics account and then click on Admin link at the top.This will bring you to the admin section of Google Analytics.

First you need to select the account from the left hand column. After that you need to click on Tracking Info to expand it.

Finally, you will see the Referral Exclusion List option.

Clicking on it will show you the referral exclusion list. Click on the add referral exclusion button and start adding domain names that you want to block.