[Detailed explanation] How to exclude referrer spam from Google Analytics

This is Narita from the Marketing Department!

One day, when I looked at the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) screen, I noticed some unnatural data in the "Referral" section

I was curious and looked into it, and found out that it was "referrer spam," which became popular a while ago, and since it was interfering with data measurement, I excluded it. In this article, I'll explain how to do it!

What is referrer spam?

Referrer spam refers to nuisance behavior that takes advantage of referral source measurement using access analysis tools

Repeated access from malicious websites leaves traces of a large influx of traffic from a certain site when access analysis is performed. These malicious websites may contain malware, and if a user becomes curious about the referrer and clicks on the URL, they may become infected with malware

How to check for referrer spam

So what exactly is referrer spam? Let's take a look at it using GA4, which is where our company Beyond 's website information is registered.

① Open Google Analytics and click "Reports" > "Acquisition" > "Traffic Acquisition."

At this time, the item displayed as ④ "Referral" in the image is the part where we will be excluding referrer spam

② Change the display item to "Session referrer/media."

③ Details of each media will be displayed like this

Approximately 2,300 users were measured from the two domains circled in red. However, the count for engagement metrics is 0, which means that all users bounced after visiting the website without doing anything

Since it is unnatural for hundreds of unrelated people to all behave in the same way, it is highly likely that the two domains circled in red are referrer spam

I checked this domain aguse.jp

However, since it interferes with data measurement, we will exclude it

How to exclude specified domains

From here, we will explain how to exclude referrer spam from your measurement results. This time, we will take measures by specifying referrer spam domains as exclusions within GA4

① Click "Management" from the sidebar

② Click "Data Stream"

③ Select the account where referrer spam was detected

④ Click "Google Tag" > "Set Tag"

⑤Click "See more" to expand

⑥ Click "List of references to exclude"

⑦ Click "Add Condition" and enter the domain information. Save and reflect it in your account

By following these steps, your registered domain will no longer be visible

summary

To exclude referrer spam, you need to follow these steps: 1. Identify suspicious domains, and 2. Set up domain exclusions

There are many other spam types besides those introduced here, so you cannot assume that "it's okay just because you took measures once." Be sure to check regularly

Thank you for watching until the end