[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 under "Referral."

I got curious and looked into it, and found out that it was "referrer spam" that had become popular a while ago, so I excluded it because it was interfering with data measurement. This time I will explain the steps!

What is referrer spam?

Referrer spam refers to nuisance behavior that uses referrer measurement using access analysis tools.

Repeated accesses from malicious websites leave evidence that a large amount of traffic came from a certain site when performing access analysis. Malware may be installed on these malicious websites, and if a measurer who is curious about the source of the reference clicks on that URL, he or she will be infected with the malware. There is a possibility that such damage may occur.

How to check referrer spam

So what exactly is referrer spam? actually registers our company's Beyond

① Open Google Analytics and click "Reports" > "Customer acquisition" > "Traffic acquisition".

At this time, the item ④ "Referral" displayed in the image is the part that will be used to exclude referrer spam.

② Change the display item to "Session reference source/media".

③ Details of each media will be displayed like this.

Approximately 2,300 users visited from the two domains circled in red. However, a count of 0 for the Engagement metric means that all users visited your website and bounced without doing anything.

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

I verified 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 measurement results. This time, we will take measures by specifying exclusion of referrer spam domains within GA4.

① Click “Manage” from the sidebar

②Click “Data Stream”

③ Select the account where referrer spam was measured

④Click “Google Tag” > “Set Tag”

⑤Click “See more” to expand

⑥Click “List of references to exclude”

⑦Click “Add condition” and enter the domain information. Save and reflect in your account

By following the steps above, the registered domain will no longer be displayed.

summary

To exclude referrer spam, you need to follow the steps of 1) finding a suspicious domain, and 2) setting domain exclusion settings.

There are many types of spam other than those introduced, so it is not possible to say ``it's okay just because you have taken countermeasures once''. Please be careful not to neglect regular checks.

Thank you for watching until the end.