going gangsta on referral spam
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@johnpetersontx develare.com
Going Gangsta on Referral Spam: The Art of the Takedown
John Peterson, President Develare
August 16, 2015 SearchHOU Meetup
Houston, Texas
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Existential Crisis
My traffic is looking great!
More sessions than ever before!
Why nobody read my stuff?
Why everybody leave?
Why nobody call?
@johnpetersontx develare.com
In the beginning…
1. Pretend to host referrer link.
2. SEO guys get curious about referrer.
3. SEMALT gets more traffic.
4. ???
5. Profit
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Here Come The Ghosts…
Ghost Referral Spam can’t be blocked by server.
Never visit your website.
Exploit weakness in Google Analytics JavaScript code.
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Referral Spammer Tells
Sessions = New Users
Pages / Session = 1.00
Avg. Session Duration = 0:00:00
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Not Perfect…
This does not catch more sophisticated bots
Bots can come from legit referrers
Bots may not be bots… just cookie blockers
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Disclaimer
Attention SEO or Internet Marketing Expert. By proceeding, you agree to the following:
• You will not laugh at John’s traffic • You will not talk about your landing page
Common Approaches
Black List
White List
Cookies
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Executive Summary
Use Google Tag Assistant to verify what you’ve got.
Create cookie in Google Tag Manager.
Add Google Tag Manager snippet to website.
Add Google Analytics snipper to website.
Use Google Tag Assistant Extension to verify GTM.
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Create test view in Google Analytics.
Configure Google Analytics test view to read and filter by cookie.
Verify results in test view.
When verified copy to main view.
Did we block them?
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Blocked
localhost:8884
sexyali.com
qualitymarketzone.com
@johnpetersontx develare.com
–Euripides
“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.”
@johnpetersontx develare.com
John Peterson
Phone: 888-521-8996
Twitter: @johnpetersontx
Email: jpeterson@develare.com
@johnpetersontx develare.com
Resources
1. Referer spam. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
2. Semalt infecting computers to spam the web. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
3. 4G Series: The Ultimate Referrer Blacklist, Featuring Over 8000 Banned Referrers. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
4. Eupipedes. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
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