Category: Referral Spam

Online spam comes in all shapes and sizes and it is always annoying and frustrating. In this next article that you’re about to read, we will be focusing on one particular spamming method called Referral spam. Recently, new instances of Referral Spam known as O-o-8-o-o.com has been reported, which led us to writing the current article. Here, we will give our readers an in-depth explanation on how this particular type of spam works and what its actual goal is. You will also be provided with several simple but very important rules that will help you deal with O-o-8-o-o.com and ensure that you don’t have to deal with any more Referral Spam in the future.

Introduction

If this is the first time you’re encountered this spamming technique, we must explain to you how it actually works. Referral spam is specialized at targeting websites. What it does is it creates fake visits to those sites. The purpose of this is that once a visit is generated, the visitor’s URL will be displayed on your website’s statistics. Many admins keep a close eye of their site’s traffic and often tend to follow visitors’ addresses to their source. When you follow the URL address coming from O-o-8-o-o.com, you’d be effectively generating an actual visit to the hacker’s site, thus increasing its Google Analytics rating. On a larger scale, this can substantially boost the online crook’s website rating. As for your own site, it won’t be actually be harmed by the spam and it’s rating will not be altered by the spam. However, all those fake visits will mess up your statistics and prevent you from figuring out what your actual traffic is. This can be quite an issue if you are looking to improve your site and attract more visitors based on your site’s stats.

Different types

Crawler Spam: This is the classic type of Referral Spam and it uses actual bots to go to your site and thus generate views. In 2014, Google managed to devise a way to detect and stop this form of spam and since then it has become quite rare, because it was no longer effective.

Ghost Spam: This is a more advanced version of the classic Referral Spam. Instead of bots that actually visit your website, it directly meddles with your website’s statistics making it appear as if it has been visited while in reality no visits were made. While your actual rating in Google Analytics is not changed, you’d still be unable to tell how much of the views are from actual users and how much are Ghost spam. So far, Google has not developed an effective solution for this type, though they are working on it. Similarly to most instances of Referral Spam nowadays, O-o-8-o-o.com falls under the Ghost category. Below our article, you can find a removal guide, in which we show how you can manually stop the spam from messing with your website’s stats. However, make sure to read our last paragraph, in which we will give you several invaluable tips that will help you handle your current issue and also prevent it from occurring again.

Important tips

Remember and apply the following rules and guidelines to ensure that you no longer have to deal with unwanted spam going towards your website.

• Do not use the referral exclusion list for Ghost Spam – A common mistake for website admins is that once they notice that their site is being spammed they add the spammer’s URL to Google’s exclusion list. This only works for instances of Crawler Spam and currently those are quite rare. If you use this method for O-o-8-o-o.com or any other Ghost Spam, you’d make matters even worse. Once you add O-o-8-o-o.com’s URL to the list, Google runs a check on that address. If it’s Ghost Spam, the check won’t detect any unwanted visits, since that’s not how ghost spammers work as we earlier explained. After this, the address is automatically regarded as legit and from that point on, O-o-8-o-o.com will be free to keep on nagging you. That is why, we advise against using the exclusions list unless you are absolutely sure that you are dealing with a crawler and not a ghost.
• Filtration – The easiest way to avoid unwanted spam towards your website is to get a good, reliable filtration tool. Depending on how important your website is for you, you might want to invest some money for a high-quality filter because it would surely pay off in the long run.
• Hosting – Choosing a good website filter is important and even more so is making sure that you are using a reliable hosting service. Your website security greatly depends on the hosting company that you’ve chosen. If you want to make sure that you do not get frustrated by O-o-8-o-o.com and that your site is safe and secured, make sure to carefully pick the company that is going to be your site’s host.

Block O-o-8-o-o.com in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add O-o-8-o-o.com in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter O-o-8-o-o.com. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block O-o-8-o-o.com referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} O-o-8-o-o.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} O-o-8-o-o.com

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

This page was created to help webmasters block the motherboard.vice.com google analytics /referral and help you understand what it is.

In the event that you have been targeted by Motherboard.vice.com referral spam, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. This article is dedicated to explaining the effects and the operation principles of referral spam as a whole and this particular case, as well. We will tell you everything you need to know about this nuisance, as well as about a common mistake people make in an effort to deal with the issue on their own. However, most importantly, we will show you how to effectively remove the spammers from your stats and prevent them from further messing with them. You will find a removal guide attached to this page, just below the article for that purpose.

What is Motherboard.vice.com referral spam and what does it do?

First of all, for the sake of not getting things confused, we should point out that Motherboard.vice.com belongs to a subtype of referral spam known as ghost spam. It shouldn’t be confused with the classic referral spam, though both forms share the same objective. The point of both types is to popularize a given website – the spammers’ website. Even the means of achieving this is the same, save for one small detail that makes all the difference. So, let’s explain from the beginning.

Classic referral spam first began targeting various website owners by sending bots and crawlers to their websites and initiating visits. There would usually be a number of visits large enough to attract the victim’s attention and make themselves noticed. However, these visits would have no session time at all and a nearly 100% bounce rate. This, too, was aimed at sparking the affected users’ curiosity. So, in effect, the goal would be to get that website owner to click back on this strange website that has been initiating numerous short visits. This would generate traffic for the spamming website and the initial aim will have been reached. Now, soon after this practice began terrorizing far too many websites, Google developed a way to combat the bots and the crawlers and eventually put a stop to it all.

But it couldn’t last too long, as the spammers still want to boost their ranking and make their website more popular. So, they found a way to work around Google’s antispam mechanisms, by avoiding using bots and crawlers altogether. Instead, spam like Motherboard.vice.com goes straight to your Google Analytics stats and manipulates the data in them. As a result of this activity, your stats will display false information, leading you to believe that your website has been visited by another website. And in effect it will all follow the same scenario as described above. You will most likely click back on the visiting (spamming) site and generate traffic for it. And keep in mind that these practices don’t only target you and, say, a handful of other people. They spread their reach to vast numbers of websites, somewhere in the hundreds of thousands at times. So imagine the amount of traffic they are actually capable of gaining.

As for fighting Motherboard.vice.com and its brethren, it’s not that hard, but if you do it wrong – you will suffer the consequences. You can find plenty of suggestions online, advising you to use the Referral Exclusion list so as to block the spam. We cannot stress this enough: this will not work. In fact, you will be making matters gruesomely worse. So much so, that you won’t even be able to recognize your stats afterwards and will end up paying for traffic your website has never seen. Allow us to illustrate. You enter Motherboard.vice.com into the Referral Exclusion list and expect things to get better from that point on. However, Google Analytics needs to verify the information you’ve given it and therefore follows back the visitations you reported. Seeing as there were never any real visits to begin with, GA won’t see anything wrong with the visits and will mark them as regular traffic. As a result, your stats will still be messed up and you will have to pay for non-existing views. In order to avoid further distorting your stats, we recommend you use the below guide intended specifically for that purpose. An in order to prevent cases like this from occurring in the future, we would advise you to upgrade to a better hosting service. Better hosting usually means better spam filters.

Block Motherboard.vice.com in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Motherboard.vice.com in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Motherboard.vice.com. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Motherboard.vice.com referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Motherboard.vice.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Motherboard.vice.com

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

This page was created to help webmasters block the motherboard.vice.com google analytics /referral and help you understand what it is.

In the event that you have been targeted by Motherboard.vice.com referral spam, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. This article is dedicated to explaining the effects and the operation principles of referral spam as a whole and this particular case, as well. We will tell you everything you need to know about this nuisance, as well as about a common mistake people make in an effort to deal with the issue on their own. However, most importantly, we will show you how to effectively remove the spammers from your stats and prevent them from further messing with them. You will find a removal guide attached to this page, just below the article for that purpose.

What is Motherboard.vice.com referral spam and what does it do?

First of all, for the sake of not getting things confused, we should point out that Motherboard.vice.com belongs to a subtype of referral spam known as ghost spam. It shouldn’t be confused with the classic referral spam, though both forms share the same objective. The point of both types is to popularize a given website – the spammers’ website. Even the means of achieving this is the same, save for one small detail that makes all the difference. So, let’s explain from the beginning.

Classic referral spam first began targeting various website owners by sending bots and crawlers to their websites and initiating visits. There would usually be a number of visits large enough to attract the victim’s attention and make themselves noticed. However, these visits would have no session time at all and a nearly 100% bounce rate. This, too, was aimed at sparking the affected users’ curiosity. So, in effect, the goal would be to get that website owner to click back on this strange website that has been initiating numerous short visits. This would generate traffic for the spamming website and the initial aim will have been reached. Now, soon after this practice began terrorizing far too many websites, Google developed a way to combat the bots and the crawlers and eventually put a stop to it all.

But it couldn’t last too long, as the spammers still want to boost their ranking and make their website more popular. So, they found a way to work around Google’s antispam mechanisms, by avoiding using bots and crawlers altogether. Instead, spam like Motherboard.vice.com goes straight to your Google Analytics stats and manipulates the data in them. As a result of this activity, your stats will display false information, leading you to believe that your website has been visited by another website. And in effect it will all follow the same scenario as described above. You will most likely click back on the visiting (spamming) site and generate traffic for it. And keep in mind that these practices don’t only target you and, say, a handful of other people. They spread their reach to vast numbers of websites, somewhere in the hundreds of thousands at times. So imagine the amount of traffic they are actually capable of gaining.

As for fighting Motherboard.vice.com and its brethren, it’s not that hard, but if you do it wrong – you will suffer the consequences. You can find plenty of suggestions online, advising you to use the Referral Exclusion list so as to block the spam. We cannot stress this enough: this will not work. In fact, you will be making matters gruesomely worse. So much so, that you won’t even be able to recognize your stats afterwards and will end up paying for traffic your website has never seen. Allow us to illustrate. You enter Motherboard.vice.com into the Referral Exclusion list and expect things to get better from that point on. However, Google Analytics needs to verify the information you’ve given it and therefore follows back the visitations you reported. Seeing as there were never any real visits to begin with, GA won’t see anything wrong with the visits and will mark them as regular traffic. As a result, your stats will still be messed up and you will have to pay for non-existing views. In order to avoid further distorting your stats, we recommend you use the below guide intended specifically for that purpose. An in order to prevent cases like this from occurring in the future, we would advise you to upgrade to a better hosting service. Better hosting usually means better spam filters.

Block Motherboard.vice.com in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Motherboard.vice.com in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Motherboard.vice.com. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Motherboard.vice.com referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Motherboard.vice.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Motherboard.vice.com

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

The Lifehacĸer.com referral spam in Google Analytics is a new breed of problem. This page is dedicated to eradicating it from your GA statistics.

If you have been affected by the likes of Lifehacĸer.com, you’ve found the right page to help you deal with this problem. Referral spam is among the most annoying things you could be faced with as a website owner, and though it’s not something malicious or dangerous, it is recommended to deal with the spammers as quickly as possible. In this article we will explain how referral spam operates and what you can do to protect yourself from it in the future. Also, we will provide a detailed removal guide below the article to help you block Lifehacĸer.com. It is important that you read the information provided here first, however, so as to be informed of the things you shouldn’t do, as well.

Lifehacĸer.com: How it works

Lifehacĸer.com would more accurately be referred to as ghost spam. That is to distinguish it from its predecessor, whom you will hardly ever encounter – classic referral spam. The latter was successfully combated by Google and its existence is kept to a very bare minimum. In both cases, the referral spammers aim to gain traffic for their own website. That’s why they target immense numbers of various websites and get the website owners to click back on them, thus generating traffic. The difference between the two subtypes is the means, by which they aimed to accomplish this. In the case of classic referral spam, the spammers would send bots and crawlers to your site. There would usually be some noticeable amount of visits with literally no session time and the idea was to trigger your curiosity and get you to click back. Simple. This activity was easier to block for Google due to the employing of bots and crawlers.

So, as a result ghost spam like Lifehacĸer.com emerged. Instead of using the crawlers, the spammers took straight to the Google Analytics stats of the targeted sites. In them, they enter false data, which gives you the impression that your website has received multiple viewings from the spamming website. Again, you are expected to get curious and click on this site to check out what it’s about. Thus, traffic is generated, their popularity skyrockets and so does their ranking. While this seems like a naïve approach on behalf of the spammers, the scale, at which it is often conducted, makes it worthwhile. After all, you are only one of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of other website owners, who have undergone the same procedure. Even if only a certain percentage of these people click on the site to see what’s going on – that’s already a fat number.

As far as harmfulness goes, though, ghost spam like Lifehacĸer.com is pretty harmless. All it does is affect your stats in GA, it cannot impact anything else, like your actual traffic count for example. But over time the gap between your real statistics and the ones that include the spam from Lifehacĸer.com will only grow and will eventually result in a completely unrealistic picture. This should be important to you if you wish for your website to prosper, as how else would you otherwise be able to adequately attune to your audience? Therefore, it is paramount that you do not allow the referral spammers to continue polluting your stats.

That, however, does not mean giving into panic and making rash, foolish decisions in this regard. One of these misled decisions you could possible make, especially if you spend enough time researching the topic and reading about it on forums and whatnot, it employing the Referral Exclusion list. This is fundamentally a wrong approach. That list was not made to battle referral spam and if you use it exactly for that purpose, you will get yourself into even more trouble. By entering the spammers into that list you will basically be asking GA to go and check out the source of the visits. Since, as pointed out above, there were no real visits to begin with, GA will get confused and for no better option will mark them as traffic. So from now on, future visits will also be marked as traffic. As a result, you will not only have a distorted statistical image, you will also be paying for traffic you don’t have. Use the removal guide we’ve provided on this page to solve this issue and consider upgrading your hosting service for better protection against spam.

Block Lifehacĸer.com Spam in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Lifehacĸer.com in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Lifehacĸer.com. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Lifehacĸer.com referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Lifehacĸer.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Lifehacĸer.com

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

A popular referral spam named Addons.mozilla.org has recently been reported as a great disturbance to website owners. This spam creates some fake data inside Google Analytics and messes up the statistics of the targeted website. If you are on this page, the chance is that you are probably having a close encounter with this annoying spam and you are probably looking for a solution to block it. Here we are going to talk about the specifics of Addons.mozilla.org and the possible inconvenience it may create. If you don’t want to tolerate it, in the removal guide below you will find an effective way to get rid of it. And we would encourage you to do so if you want to keep your website stats realistic and useful. 

First thing’s first: how dangerous can Addons.mozilla.org be?

As a website owner, you probably know how important the data about your website is and how much you rely on its accuracy in order to build your online marketing strategies for development. That’s why having referral spam like Addons.mozilla.org could be quite annoying, especially when it manipulates the statistics about your website’s traffic with fake visits. This could create quite misleading information about the real way your website is positioned on the web and may totally get you lost in the picture. Fortunately, this is a problem that can be dealt with and there really isn’t any need to panic. Generally, referral spam does not pose any malicious threat to your website or your security. It will not affect your real traffic or website visits and popularity if this can comfort you somehow. However, it may pollute the real statistics about it with some fake information, which can really mislead you in the long term. That’s why blocking it as soon as possible is highly recommended if you want to keep getting reliable statistics about your website positioning and performance on the web.

What is the goal of referral spam?

If you are wondering why anyone would target your website with annoying spam and create all these fake visits in your Google Analytics, then you may find this information interesting. Spammers usually use two types of spam – the classic referral spam and the so-called Ghost spam. These both have one goal – to make the website owners curious enough to click and see where all this huge amount of traffic from the stats on their website is coming from. The moment they click on the spammers’ site, their goal is completed – they receive real visits and this way they grow the traffic of their own site and boost it ahead in Google’s ranking. The spammers usually target thousands of websites with their spam, so you can imagine how big the traffic they get is. This is a Black hat SEO practice and Google is trying its best to restrict is as much as possible. In fact, the classic referral spam, which uses bots and crawlers to create fake traffic visits, has been successfully limited in the past few years. But its evolved version, the Ghost spam, is still creating issues for website owners. Addons.mozilla.org is one such spam and it doesn’t need bots or crawlers to mess up your stats, because it directly manipulates your Google Analytics statistics by faking website visits. And even though it will not do anything malicious to your site, if you don’t block it on time, at some point it will provide you with inaccurate Google Analytics stats, which may be misleading if you rely on them to develop your website. That’s why removing Addons.mozilla.org on time can save you from the disinformation that may follow.

How can you effectively block the referral spam and prevent it in the future?

It is not excluded that at some point you may come across spam like Addons.mozilla.org . Unfortunately, such spam is widely distributed on the web nowadays and there are no 100% effective methods of prevention, but there are a few things one could do to avoid it. Having a reputed and reliable hosting of your website is one major thing that website owners can do. The reputed hosting companies usually have good spam filters, which prevent spam from targeting the hosted sites. Cheap hosting, on the other hand, may not be able to provide the same protection. Blocking the spam once you’ve been targeted may be a bit tricky, but the removal guide below contains some effective ways you can use to get rid of it. Give them a try and let us know in case you need some assistance.

Block Addons.mozilla.org in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add  Addons.mozilla.org  in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter  Addons.mozilla.org . Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Addons.mozilla.org referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Addons.mozilla.org [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Addons.mozilla.org

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

Thenextweb.com referral spam in Google Analytics is a new breed of problem. This page is dedicated to eradicating it from your GA statistics.

Referral spam is one any website owners worst nightmares. Though it’s not as harmful a threat as one might first imagine, it can still be a pretty big pain in the neck. Thenextweb.com referral spam is one of the latest nuisances of its kind, which numerous users have been reporting to use lately. In this article we will show you an effective way to block Thenextweb.com, but we also recommend that you spend a few minutes to read through the next few paragraphs before moving on to the removal instructions. Within them we will explain the exact principles, by which referral spam operates, and we will also clarify how you should and shouldn’t react in response to such instances and why.

What is referral spam and why has Thenextweb.com targeted me?

To be more precise, Thenextweb.com is a form of what it known as ghost spam. This is the younger form of referral spam, which succeeded the pioneer in this category – classic referral spam. The difference between the two is small, but crucial and is in effect what led to the almost complete extermination of classic referral spam. So, in the case of Thenextweb.com’s predecessor, spammers would send bots and/or crawlers to various websites. The idea was to get the website owners to get curious about these strange visits, which would usually have an incredibly high bounce rate, but would keep recurring, nonetheless. Thus, the curious website owner would click back to check out this mysterious website that keeps on visiting and would in this way complete the whole cycle. You see, the spammers are only after traffic. So, picture thousands of websites being targeted in this very same manner. If even a fraction of those people click back – that would already boost the targeted website’s popularity and rating. As a result, it will start appearing higher up in Google’s search results, etc.

Pretty simple scheme, right? Well, thankfully Google was able to figure out a way to combat this practice and for a while everything went quite. Until the spammers got one step ahead and came up with ghost spam, the likes of which you are dealing with right now. The difference? Instead of using the bothersome bots, the spammers now directly head over to your Google Analytics statistics and create false data in them. Hence, they give you the impression that their website has been visiting yours, whereas that never actually happened. So, in the same way as with the classic referral spam, you click back on this visitor to check them out and create traffic for them.

Important to understand:

Though this may truly seem troubling, remember that the spammers are only meddling with your stats. They do not affect your rating, popularity, traffic count, etc. From that point of view, they don’t really cause any damage to your website. However, by entering false data into your statistics, they essentially distort them. This can become a serious issue, if you would like to keep track of your actual audience and have a realistic perception of who and how often views your website. Over time, the longer Thenextweb.com remains active, these stats will become terribly twisted and will hardly correspond to reality. And that is when users tend to make one common, but fatal mistake. They turn to the Referral Exclusion list for help. This is fundamentally wrong, because that’s not what the tool was created for. But in doing so, you will only be creating more problems on top of the existing one. How? You will report Thenextweb.com’s visits as spam and GA will be obligated to follow up on this notice. So, as Thenextweb.com never really initiated actual visits, Google Analytics won’t find any. Then it will simply proceed to mark the visits as real traffic and that is when the nightmare will begin. Not only will your stats be messed up, you will need to pay for traffic your website has never seen. The solution? After you’ve successfully blocked Thenextweb.com with the help of the below guide, you will need to invest in some proper protection against future spammers. Usually, upgrading to a better hosting service will do the job, as generally more expensive hosting will offer higher quality spam-blocking mechanisms. You’ll pay a little more, but it will effectively be investing in your own site.

Block Thenextweb.com in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Thenextweb.com in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Thenextweb.com. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Thenextweb.com referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Thenextweb.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Thenextweb.com

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

The Bukleteg.xyz referral spam in Google Analytics is a new breed of problem. This page is dedicated to eradicating it from your GA statistics.

In the event that you have been affected by Bukleteg.xyz referral spam – fear not, your troubles will soon be behind you. Referral spam is one of the most common issues website owners tend to face and believe us when we say that you are by far not the only one to be affected by Bukleteg.xyz. Please take the time to read through the following few paragraphs to get better acquainted with the nature of this nuisance, before moving on to the removal guide below. The guide is written in step-by-step form and will walk you through the process of blocking the referral spammers, which will rid you of their influence.

Bukleteg.xyz: What it’s all about

Bukleteg.xyz is a form of ghost spam – a subgroup of referral spam. This type is the successor of the oldest referral spam, nowadays known as classic referral spam. The difference between the two is small, but fundamental. In both cases the goal of the spammers is to attract traffic to their website and boost its rating and popularity. Again, in both cases this is achieved by tricking owners of other websites to visit theirs. Now here comes the difference: in the case of the older classic referral spam, the spammers would send bots and crawlers to the targeted websites, thus imitating traffic, however there would be literally no session time. This was intended to spark that website owner’s or manager’s curiosity and pay this visiting website a visit themselves, just to check it out. And with that the process will be complete: a hit for the spamming website will have been generated. Now, the classic referral spam, mainly thanks to the fact that it employed the use of bots, was quickly eradicated by Google’s specialists and you will have a pretty hard time finding its representatives today. However, this is where ghost spam appeared and it took a different approach to the same principle. Instead of sending crawlers, spam like Bukleteg.xyz would go directly to your Google Analytics stats and meddle with them, putting in data of fake visits that never happened. This way, the same effect is achieved: you think you’ve been getting actual hit and click back to investigate.

How harmful is this?

Depending on how you want to look at it, from not at all to absolutely devastating. Objectively, Bukleteg.xyz does not affect your actual traffic count and it will not harm your rating or the site’s popularity. It only has influence over your statistics. But if you are interesting in always having a fresh and realistic perspective on how well your site is doing, this will soon become an issue, as the fake visits will start changing the picture. As a result, the longer the spam issue remains unaddressed, the less your stats will have to do with reality. For this reason, you might want to block Bukleteg.xyz as soon as you’re finished reading this article. However, we would like to warn you against rash actions like entering the spammers in the Referral Exclusion list. Though the name of this tool includes the word ‘referral’, don’t be fooled into believing that it is meant to deal with referral spam. It’s not! Moreover, it will effectively make things a whole lot worse if you choose to go down that route.  

By using the referral exclusion list in the hopes of blocking the spammers, you will prompt Google Analytics to investigate the visits you’ve reported. As there were no real visits to begin with, this will lead GA to believe this was a false alarm and it will mark those visits as actual traffic. This will lead to your stats getting further messed up and on top of that, your actual traffic count will now be affected and you will be paying for traffic you don’t have. The best way to shield yourself from threats like these is by investing in good-quality hosting. Typically, the better the hosting – the better its anti-spam filters and other spam-blocking mechanisms. For those of you engaged in affiliate marketing networks, this should be of paramount importance, as these kinds of networks attract spam like magnets. It’s just too easy to find a weak link in the chain of affiliates, through which to start targeting the rest of the sites in the network.

Block Bukleteg.xyz in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Bukleteg.xyz in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Bukleteg.xyz. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Bukleteg.xyz referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Bukleteg.xyz [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Bukleteg.xyz

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
 Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

The following page was created with the intention of helping webmasters remove the Blotalko.xyz /referral spam in Google Analytics.

A new type of referral spam has been messing up with the Google Analytics statistics of many website owners. This time, the problem that we are going to talk about is called Boltalko.xyz and on this page, you are going to find some effective methods to remove it from your statistics. Below we have included a removal guide with some easy-to-follow instructions, which will help you clean your website from the referral spam and gain back the control to your statistics. In addition, we will give you more details about Boltalko.xyz, and the most important things you need to know about it,  in order to keep your Google Analytics safe from such annoying disturbance in the future. 

What is Boltalko.xyz?

Website owners all around the world are commonly facing some issues with their Google Analytics statistics, mostly related to referral spam such as Boltalko.xyz. This type of spam usually causes some fake or misleading information in the analytics report, which may not really respond to the real traffic data of the current website. The problem with such referral spam is that the owners and website marketing specialists rely on the information collected by the Google Analytics reports, and when this data has been messed up or replaced with some fake spam traffic, they cannot have a clear picture of the positioning of the website and build a reliable marketing strategy for its development. That’s why removing Boltalko.xyz is a really good idea if you want to have a realistic look at what is happening to your site and keep developing it.

Ghost spam and referral spam – what’s the difference?

When it comes to website spam, we usually have to deal with two types –  referral spam and ghost spam. The classic referral spam uses bots and crawlers in order to visit your website multiple times and immediately leave it. This way it pollutes your statistics and creates huge bounce rate. Such referral spam was widely distributed a few years ago, but fortunately, Google has put significant efforts to restrict it as much as possible. However, the spammers quickly came up with a new and smarter type of spam also called Ghost spam. Instead of using bots and crawlers, it just goes directly to your Google Analytics statistics and messes up with the information there, by simulating website visits where, in fact, there aren’t any.

What is the whole idea behind this spam? The spammers’ goal is to make you click on the spamming website. Once you notice a visitor in your Analytics that constantly comes back to your site and leaves it immediately, you may probably get curious to see who he is. The moment you click back to the visitor’s website, the goal of the spammers is completed. You may end up on a website that has nothing to do with your own, or is a simply some kind of promotional webpage or sponsored site that earns traffic from your clicks. Having in mind that the spam can target millions of websites, this means that millions of curious website owners click on the spammers’ page and this way bring it up in the Google ranking, which is exactly what the spammers want.

How to remove Boltalko.xyz?

The longer Boltalko.xyz remains on your site, the more inaccurate your Google Analytics statistics will become, and that’s why we advise you to remove it as soon as possible. However, we should warn you that in your attempts to fix the referral spam issue, you may involuntarily create bigger problems. To avoid that, we suggest you stick to some proven methods in handling referral spam like the ones in the guide below. Of course, there are many other methods available online, such as adding the spam in  the Referral Exclusion list, but they may not be that effective in dealing with Boltalko.xyz and may even do more harm than good to your statistics.

How to keep referral spam away in the future?

Speaking about protection, we have to say that there really isn’t a 100% guarantee that you will keep such referral spam way from your site, but certainly, you can do a few things to minimize these chances. Where you host your website really matters, because the good hosting providers have more reliable spam filters and this way they can provide better protection against such type of disturbance. You can also add some filters and seek for reputed website protection tools.  As a website owner, this should be your first priority in order to keep your important business statistics clean form undesired spam disturbance.

Block Boltalko.xyz in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Boltalko.xyz in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Boltalko.xyz. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Boltalko.xyz referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Boltalko.xyz [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Boltalko.xyz

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
 Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

In this article we will explain what is Bezlimitko.xyz and how to block this Referral Spam from messing up your Google Analytics.

We are assuming you have sought out this page due to some recent rather strange activity coming from something called Bezlimitko.xyz. You own or manage a website and have come to notice that you’ve been receiving a number of visits with literally no session time from the same website, over and over again. Well, regrettably, we’ll have to tell you that you’ve been targeted by what it known as referral spam. This is rather harmless practice that will not affect your site’s popularity, reputation or ranking, but can have devastating effects on your Google Analytics stats. Basically, these fake visits aren’t distinguished by GA from the real ones, which is why the picture painted by your statistics will gradually become completely distorted with false, inaccurate information. However, we will show you how to successfully block Bezlimitko.xyz and stop the fake data from entering your stats.

Why have I been targeted and what does Bezlimitko.xyz want?

Referral spam, also commonly known as ghost spam, seeks to popularize a given website by relying on users’ curiosity. This form of spam basically involves creating records of visits (that never happened, mind you) from the website in question and getting you to click back on this visitor, thus generating traffic for that mysterious site.  Obviously, the goal is to increase its popularity and rating, by boosting its listing in Google’s search results. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’ve been singled out for this purpose, oh no. Ghost spammers typically spread their reach to thousands, even hundreds of thousands of sites across the web, with the calculation of even a small percentage of the affected people clicking back to check out the spamming site. As you can imagine, that can already amount to some substantial traffic.

This practice actually evolved from another, similar one, nowadays called classic referral spam, which Google effectively put a stop to. The idea behind it was more or less the same, only instead of merely meddling with your stats, the spammers sent bots and crawlers to actually create visits. This was much easier for the experts to trace, as there were actual views to trace, whereas in the case of Bezlimitko.xyz, there are none. And this has in turn birthed another issue, rooted directly in people trying to fight the spam themselves.

If you’ve already researched the matter online, you may have come across a number of suggestions related to including the referral spammers in something called the Referral Exclusion list. This is falsely perceived as the correct way of blocking Bezlimitko.xyz and others of its kind and here is why this is actually a very serious mistake. As pointed out, Bezlimitko.xyz doesn’t actually visit your page – it only creates that impression in GA. So, what happens when you enter this in the Referral Exclusion list is Google Analytics tries to trace back the visits and, because there are no actual visits to trace, it gets confused. Its confusion results in it not regarding the whole thing as spam, but actually counting those hits as traffic. So, all in all, you went from having messy stats to still having messy stats and on top of that paying for traffic that you don’t have. Conclusion: don’t resort to the Referral Exclusion list for this purpose.

Prevention

Once you’ve dealt with Bezlimitko.xyz using the instruction provided below, you will need to do everything in your power to make sure you don’t run into it again. Granted, that may not be 100% possible, as to this date there is no foolproof solution for referral spam. However, you can increase your chances of keeping your statistics accurate and that’s already worthwhile, provided you actually care about having a realistic idea of what goes on with your website and its audience. Your main support in this matter a spam filters and other spam-blocking mechanisms. And those are provided by your hosting. As a rule of thumb, usually the more expensive the hosting service – the better the quality and that includes spam protection, as well. If your current hosting allowed you to land in the situation, in which you are currently in, it may be a good idea to consider changing to a better one. The difference in price will hardly be that big, but it will most probably give you more bang for your buck.

How to Block Bezlimitko.xyz in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Bezlimitko.xyz in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Bezlimitko.xyz. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

How to block Bezlimitko.xyz referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Bezlimitko.xyz [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Bezlimitko.xyz

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
 Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!

In this article we will explain what is Biteg.xyz and how to block this Referral Spam from messing up your Google Analytics.

If you’ve happened to encounter Biteg.xyz referral spam – you have come to the right place. On this page we will explain to you what exactly it is you’re dealing with, how it operates and what your best options of protecting your website from this problem are. We have also attached a guide, which you will find below the following article, that aims to help you block Biteg.xyz and stop it from further messing up your stats. The guide includes step-by-step instructions, which when followed closely should have the issue solved in no time. However, in case of any trouble or you would just like to share your feedback, please use the comment section below the guide.

What is Biteg.xyz and how does it operate?

You have become targeted by one of any website owner’s worst nightmare: referral spam, also known as ghost spam, which is not to be confused with the classic referral spam (more about that in a little bit). While this form of spamming does not necessarily pose threat to either you or your website, it is a rather annoying and even obtrusive element that can often lead to misinformation regarding your website’s statistics and all that may come as a consequence of that. More so, in fact, the longer it remains a factor on your website. It functions in a fairly simple, yet ingenious way. The spammers target, say, your website and a few thousand others and create fake visits that appear in your Google Analytics stats. The visits can be several and will usually have a very high bounce rate, mostly with no time spent on the page at all. This is done with goal only: to provoke your curiosity and check this other website that has been visiting yours so often. That’s all. This creates traffic for the other site, because as opposed to their ‘visits’, yours are actually real. This will in turn boost their rating and will make them appear higher in the Google search results. And picture even a small percentage of the thousands of people whose sites were targeted paying the spammers a virtual visit – that’s already a pretty solid number.

Now, this is not be mistaken with the way ghost spam’s predecessor, the classic referral spam worked. In that case, the spammers would actually use bots and crawlers to visit your website, thus leaving a mark on your visitation stats. These actions were quickly countered by Google and this form of spam was quickly hunted down to near extinction. As you can see, its successor is far simpler and more difficult to battle.

Google Analytics and the Referral Exclusion List

It’s important to understand that Biteg.xyz does not affect your actual traffic data, your ranking or your page’s popularity in any way. All it does is mess with your statistics and thus provides a rather unrealistic picture to you, the owner. And the longer Biteg.xyz is allowed to continue with this, the more twisted that picture will become and you will eventually lose perspective over your actual, real stats. That’s why it is important to block its activity as soon as you can, but don’t make the mistake of trying to do that through the Referral Exclusion List. This is a common course of action for many affected users, which inevitably leads them to regretting it. The Referral Exclusion List is a great tool, but unfortunately not for combating ghost spam. Using it will only confuse GA and will lead to even messier stats and those ‘ghost’ visits will end up being seen as real traffic, which you certainly don’t want.

To fix your current issue with Biteg.xyz, as already mentioned, you have the guide below at your disposal. But it’s no less of a priority to avoid referral spammers from now on. Though there isn’t a way to permanently exclude the possibility of being affected by spam, we can offer you a general tip to lessen your chances of future encounters like this one. Our advice is to consider upgrading to a better hosting service. More often than not, more expensive hosting will offer better spam-filtering tools and will in this way provide better protection against referral spam. You should especially look into this, if your website has to do with affiliate marketing, which, as it is basically a network of many different websites, provides greater possibilities for spammers to target you.

How to Block Biteg.xyz in Google Analytics

---

STEP 1: In your Analytics account go to Admin —> All Filters.

STEP 2: Next, click New Filter and add Biteg.xyz in the Filter Name value.

STEP 3. Select the Custom Filter Type.  In the Filter Field —> Campaign Source. In the Filter Pattern text box, add Biteg.xyz and click the Save button at the bottom of the webpage.

Blocking Biteg.xyz referrer spam through .htaccess

If you know how to access your .htaccess file, you just need to input the following code in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Biteg.xyz [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Biteg.xyz
RewriteRule .* - [F]

If you don’t know how to access it, do the following:

Login to your cPanel account —> File Manager —> click the check-box “Document Root for” —> your website. A side note: click on “Show hidden Files” and then Go. Find the .htacess file, right click it and choose Code Edit. Input the code I gave you and Save Changes. 

How to Block Biteg.xyz in Google Analytics

Instruction #1: Enter your Analytics account.
After that load Admin and then – All Filters.

Instruction #2: After that, hit New Filter.
Next, add Biteg.xyz in the Filter Name value.

Instruction #3. Choose the Custom Filter Type. 
Once you see the Filter Field, go with Campaign Source.
Next, when you see the Filter Pattern text box, enter Biteg.xyz. Confirm by clicking  the Save button you will see at the bottom.

 How to block Biteg.xyz referrer spam using your .htaccess file

If you are aware of a way to access your .htaccess file, you will just have to write the  code below in there:

## SITE REFERRER BANNING

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Biteg.xyz [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Biteg.xyz

RewriteRule .* – [F]

In case you are not aware of a way to access it, follow these instructions:

Access your cPanel account,
the go to File Manager.
After that you should mark the check-box ‘Document Root for’.
Then go to your webpage.
 Another important tip: choose ‘Show hidden Files’.
After that select Go. 
Look for the .htacess file.
Once you find it,  right–click it.
From the options that appear, select Code Edit.
Enter the code above and Save Changes. 

Hopefully, we have been helpful! Tell us in the comment section. We will be glad to read what your opinion is!