Builders beware! Have you noticed any uninvited guests crawling around your Google Analytics account? If you have seen a sudden increase in website traffic, for instance a jump as high as 80%, this could be because a spam bot or referrer spam has hit your account. As nice as it might seem to have such an increase in website traffic, it is actually very misleading and will skew your data due to artificially inflating unique and returning visits, decreasing average visit duration, and also decreasing goal conversion rates.
How do you know if you have fallen victim to the spam bot? Pay close attention to the metrics in your Google Analytics account. If you see that you have 100% new visits, 100% bounce rate but a 0:00 average visit duration and 1 pages/visit, then you most likely have the uninvited spam bot on your account. If you have fallen victim to the dreaded spam bot, do not fret. Google Analytics has a new feature that will remove most spam bot traffic. With just a few clicks, you can be free of referrer spam and have accurate analytic reporting for your website. Follow these steps to kick that uninvited guest out the door:
- Log in to your Google Analytics Account
- Click on Admin
- Under View, click on View Settings
- Under Bot Filtering, check Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders
We recommend that all users have Bot Filtering set up in order to protect your account. If you are not using Google Analytics, you should also be tracking where your website traffic is coming from including new vs. returning users and campaign tracking. Interested in learning more about Google Analytics? Our team is here to help! E-mail us at Info@theBDX.com today! Also be sure to check out our three part Analytics August webinar series.
