Rankings-analytics.com referral spam (Free Guide)
Rankings-analytics.com referral spam Removal Guide
What is Rankings-analytics.com referral spam?
Why do I suffer from Rankings-analytics.com referral spam?
Rankings-analytics.com referral spam is the latest issue for webmasters, the owners of websites and admins. By hitting sites with the help of referrer spam, spammers seek to make their domains show up in Google Analytics and trick their admins into visiting them. In exchange for that, they are trying to promote these sites and increase their page rank in Google search. This technique is known as referrer spam indexing and blackhat SEO. What are the main issues caused by Rankings-analytics.com referral spam? If you are the one who relies on Google Analytics data while trying to improve your site, you may find it hard to treat this data properly. Referrer spam can easily affect website’s bounce rate and each of these sections: Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, etc. Also, clicking such spam URLs can be dangerous because there is no guarantee that each of websites that relies on such technique is safe. If you have been visiting such referrals for a while, it would be a great idea to scan your computer with the reliable anti-spyware and make sure that your computer is virus-free.
Unfortunately, but such referrals as Rankings-analytics.com have nothing to do with your website. As you may have already understood, their aim is to increase visitors’ traffic to specific websites and reach higher positions on Google search. After a small research, we managed to find out that this domain belongs to SEMALT. While we cannot claim that this marketing company is untrustworthy, its business practices when the traffic is collected with the help of referrer spam is quite suspicious.
Preventing referral spam on your website:
If you have been suffering from Rankings-analytics.com referrer spam for a while, you might have thought that Referrals exclusion list is all what you need to fix this problem. However, this option can help you just to remove this referrer from your statistics and transfer your spam into direct traffic, what can lead you to additional problems while trying to see the difference between a real traffic and spam. To stop Rankings-analytics.com referral spam for real, you should create an exclude filter and block the spam using .htaccess file. How can you do that? Go to the next page to see an entire guide needed for fixing your referral spam problem.
How to block Rankings-analytics.com referral traffic?
If you thought that Rankings-analytics.com is a site, which is worth visiting, you made spammers, who are responsible for spreading this referral spam, happy. Unfortunately, but there is no guarantee that each of referrals is harmless, so you should scan your computer with anti-spyware software and make sure that your machine is free of viruses. For that, we recommend using FortectIntego or Malwarebytes. To stop Rankings-analytics.com referral spam in your Google Analytics, please follow these steps:
How to block Rankings-analytics.com referral spam in Google Analytics
Step 1: Stop Rankings-analytics.com referrer spam by creating an exclude filter
- Open your Google Analytics account. Go to Admin → All Filters.
- Click Add Filter button and add Rankings-analytics.com to the Filter Name.
- Now select the Custom in Filter Type section and set Campaign Source in the Filter Field. Finally, add Rankings-analytics.com to the Filter Pattern.
- Click Save to save these changes.
Step 2: Block Rankings-analytics.com referral spam by using .htaccess file.
- Access your .htaccess file.
- Add the code, which is provided below:
## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Rankings-analytics\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Rankings-analytics\.com
RewriteRule .* – [F]
If you don’t know how to access the .htaccess file, follow these steps:
- Log into cPanel and go to Files section. Here, click the File Manager icon.
- Now check the box with Document Root for, select your domain name and click Go. Warning! Make sure you check Show Hidden Files.
- Wait for a new tab or window and find the .htaccess file. Right click it and select Code Edit.
- Now copy and paste the code that is given above and click Save Changes.
How to prevent from getting spam tools
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