Top 5 methods to clear fake traffic from your website
Posted on: August 25, 2016
As a good inbound marketer, eyes must always be focused on helping to maintain good traffic and filtering fake traffic. Bots that crawl in your site give the incorrect impression about the page and compromise user experience. The following are top 5 methods you can use to clear fake traffic from your website.
Using .Htacess
This is among the best ways to block fake traffic from your page. The method is useful because you block the bots from the page and server. Visit the root directory to access the .htaccess file in the server and rewrite the code > {HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.ilovevitaly\.com/<. The info can change slightly depending on the domain to look like > {HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.buttons\-for\-website\.com/< or even >< {HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.econom\.co/>.Remember that this file is very important for proper running of the website. If you put any character improperly, the entire site may get down. Therefore, you might consider making a backup of the entire page.
Change the last digit of the website tracking identity
If you are running a new online marketing campaign or have a new website, this method will work well. The method employs operations of Google Analytics. Every moment you register a site with Google Analytics, the tracking ID has a number that allows you to use for up to 50 different websites. Because many website owners only have one or two website/account with Google Analytics, the last number is always 1. This is a fact that spammers have known for years and will always target sites that have the last number as 1 or 2. Therefore, if you alter the last number to read something like 8, 15, or another figure, the chances are that bots will skip you. However, this strategy can only operate in a short term because you cannot keep altering the page since it affects the history of the page.
Stay away from Google Analytics exclusion list
When you visit Google Analytics in you page, one file that stands there prominently is the exclusion list. Because the file houses all the referral traffic, the first thing that comes to people’s minds is clearing it. This is the wrong thing to do. What Google does is that it ignores any traffic coming from links stored in the file. Therefore, you should leave the file the way it is so that Google can easily tell between good and bad traffic.
Utilize Filters In Google Analytics
- Filtering fake ghost traffic: These filters will help to clear referrals that did not exist even in the first place but report 100% bounce rates.
- Select create new on the Google Analytics property section.
- Generate valid host names to get genuine people visiting the page through Google Translate.
- Format the host names to include a name before or after.
- Form a new segment so that you can test the new files. Every data not in the list will be filtered.
- Go back to properties and create a new view to applying the filter you have just designed. Make sure that the filter is saved as a custom filter.
- With this, data getting to your Google Analytics will be more accurate.
Utilize WP-Ban
If the above processes turn out to be too complicated for you, consider utilizing WP-Ban. This is a good method for people using WordPress websites. On the WordPress dashboard, this ban allows you to block IP, hostname, IP range, user agents, and referral URL from accessing your website.