How to remove Boltalko.xyz referral spam

How to react to Boltalko.xyz referral spam?

Boltalko.xyz referral spam can affect stats of your Google Analytics account, but not your page directly. This URL is known to be related to Secret.ɢoogle.com referral spam^[1], which has been causing a headache for webmasters lately. Boltalko.xyz Google Analytics Referrer Spam promotes just another shady URL, which appears in Analytics panel, making webmasters believe that it somehow attracts visitors to the website. The aim of such spam is to draw victim’s attention and encourage him/her to visit the vague URL that ostensibly drives traffic to webmaster’s page. However, in reality, these visits do not actually exist. The culprit who is responsible for these spam attacks is a well-known spammer from Russia, known as Vitaly Popov. He reportedly uses spamdexing techniques^[2] to make repeated website requests from a fake referrer domain. This domain appears in victims’ Analytics statistics and frequently convinces them to visit it. It is highly recommended to stay away from such vague-looking URLs because they can point to insecure web pages that might be infectious^[3]. To see clear stats without no forged entries, you need to filter our Boltalko.xyz referral spam. If you do not know how to do it, follow instructions provided below. 

Why did the spammer contaminate my Analytics?

Vitaly Popov, who is known to be behind these spam campaigns, claims that he is using “creative marketing,” which, according to him, is not a crime (at least in Russia)^[4]. The spammer doesn’t affect target websites in a malicious way but messes up statistics about referral data, which can have bad consequences when taking decisions on how to improve the website. Vitaly spams thousands of websites every day to promote its web pages^[5]. We have also learned that the spammer actively spreads propaganda against Google. In the majority of its sites, Vitaly advertises its own search engine and browser extension called “Google killer,” which is compatible with Firefox only and seeks to convince people that the giant company is “greedy” and its search engine is the number 1 place to find misinformation. It is clear that Vitaly talks gibberish. No one wants to have their Analytics data polluted with some useless entries that promote questionable Internet sites, so all that you need to do to block Boltalko.xyz referral spam is to create some filters using instructions provided below.

How to remove Boltalko.xyz referral spam?

Now that you have learned what Boltalko.xyz referral spam is and how it affects your website, it is time to stop it and get rid of it. Below, you can see detailed instructions on how to block Boltalko.xyz referral spam. You will need to set up some filters to prevent these suspicious URLs from appearing in Google Analytics so that you could see real statistics and not distorted ones.

Step 1.

1. Go to Admin -> All Filters.
2. Then click on New Filter and type in Boltalko.xyz in the Filter Name field.
3. Choose Custom Filter Type, then choose Campaign Source from the drop-down Filter Field menu.
4. Finally, in the Filter Pattern field, enter Boltalko.xyz and hit Save.

Step 2.

1. Log into cPanel account, then go to File Manager section, and then click on the check-box called Document Root for -> your website.
2. Click on Show Hidden Files and hit Go. Once you find the .htacess file, right-click on it and select Code Edit. Enter the following text ant click Save Changes.

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

Step 3. Set up a language filter.

1. In your Analytics account, go to Admin Tab.
2. Click VIEW, select Filters and then hit +Add Filter.
3. In the Filter Name box, type: Language Spam.
4. In the Filter Pattern box, type in: \s[^\s]*\s|.{15,}|\.|,
5. Click on Verify this Filter, then Save.