How to Stop Ghost Spam from Haunting Your Analytics

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Halloween may have been yesterday, but ghosts are still hanging around.  What in the world are we talking about?  Ghost spam, of course!  In case you’ve never heard of it, ghost spam is a type of referral traffic that shows up in your Google Analytics as a visit to your site even though it never actually visits your site.  (Here’s a great article talking about the technical aspects of it by Jared Gardner).  Read on for our tips on how to stop ghost spam from haunting your data.

 

Why Should You Want to Stop Ghost Spam?stop ghost spam

Ghost spam seriously messes with your analytics by showing false information about things like:

  The number of visits to your site

  The bounce rate

  The average the time visitors are on your site.

Not good if you’re paying attention to whether you’re on track with your inbound marketing strategy.  But don’t be scared!  You can easily banish ghost spam from your analytics.

 

 

How to Block Ghost Spam from Your Google Analytics in 5 Easy Steps

1. Open up your Google Analytics console by signing into your Google Account.

2. Click on ‘Admin’.

3. Select ‘Create New Filter’ from the drop down box in the ‘View’ Column.

4. Name your view and click ‘Create’.

5. In the new screen, click on ‘Filters’, name it, select ‘Include Only’, ‘Traffic to the Hostname’, ‘That are Equal to’, type in your website’s address, and click ‘Save’.

 

That’s all there is to it!  You’ll now be able to see ghost-free data for your website!

 

{Bonus} Want Even Cleaner Data?

Go back into your ‘Admin’ section. Next, click on ‘View Settings’ and scroll down the page to the ‘Bot Filtering’ section. Click on the box that reads ‘Exclude All Hits from Known Bots and Spiders.’  Lastly, click ‘Save’.  You’ve now exterminated all the creepy spiders that Google knows about!

 

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Theresa Wray Content Manager Raney Day Design

Theresa Wray

Content Manager of Raney Day Design. Raney Day Design is where we build brands that get results.

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