Organic Traffic from irrelevant keywords in GA?
-
Hi,
I am doing SEO for a website that deals in 4-wheeler tyres. While reviewing the organic traffic in Google Analytics, i noticed some keywords that are completely irrelevant to the theme of the website. Some are porn related terms while some are like google, yahoo, laptops, youtube etc. It seems someone is doing negative SEO for my website, as a result of which a decent number of searches are coming from these irrelevant terms. What should i do to block traffic from such terms as this may harm my website's performance in search engines.
Please suggest a solution as soon as possible.
-
I did a deep dive analysis of this organic traffic from irrelevant keywords again and came to a conclusion that it is coming from a particular Internet Service Provider(ISP) and that too from a particular location only. In-order to explore more in detail, i monitor real time data in Google Analytics for organic traffic in that particular location and i found the same (screenshot attached). As a preventive measure, i have implemented a filter in the GA profile by excluding searches from that Internet Service Provider in GA reports. But this does not seems to be a permanent solution to this issue.
Can anyone suggest a solution to fix this issue permanently?
-
I see - I believe the hostname can be overridden by using the setDomainName function in the GA snippet, so that may be what's going on. WHY someone would go through the trouble, I don't know.
I would suggest posting this issue in the Google Products forum on Google Analytics, where you may be able to get some attention from someone inside Google who may have seen this problem before and have suggestions on how to handle it.
I highly doubt this is hurting your search engine rankings in any way - none of the offending content is in place on your website. It is much more likely that this is the result of someone scraping/republishing your site content and grabbing your GA code with it.
-
Hi Mike,
I selected the "secondary variable" option in the organic search report and enter "Hostname" as the variable in Google Analytics account. However, it is displaying my website's URL only for all relevant as well as irrelevant keywords.
-
http://reverseinternet.com/analytics/5670334 is showing that GA code being used on 4 domains. 2 have apollo in the name and redirect to the main site. A random 4th one called deltapoint24.com doesn't appear to have the GA code on the homepage, and throws a 404 when you add /india/ to the url.
I would also check the hostname as Mike suggested.
-
If I'm not mistaken, I believe you can simply select the "secondary variable" option in the organic search report and enter "Hostname" as the variable - which will display the root of the relative page URL for each keyword, uncovering what domain that traffic is hitting. I've used this in the past for similar GA profile issues across root/sub domains. Might be worth a shot.
-
Hello PFX111,
I checked the source code of the page, as well as the text-only version, and source code of the cached page in Google/Bing/Yahoo serps. I did not see any questionable content. If they are hacking and cloaking they're doing a darn good job of it, but I don't think that's it. Like everyone else, my first reaction was to say you were hacked, but the site appears in the SERPs without any message from Google about it being harmful to your computer, and I see no evidence that this spammy content appears on the page even when Google views the site.
Here are my two thoughts at this point:
1. It could be referral spam.
2. Someone else could be using your Google Analytics account code (it looks like UA-######-#) on their site.
In both cases you would see the keywords in Google Analytics but not Google Webmaster Tools. You can set up a new profile in Google Analtics and set it to track the domain (instead of just the relative path), which could bring up other domains if they are using your Analytics code. See this page for details on how to do that:
-
Hi,
The domain name and the landing page is http://www.apollotyres.com/india/. I have attached few screenshots of the GA account highlighting the irrelevant keywords driving organic traffic to the website. Kindly have a look at it and suggest a solution to overcome this issue.
wtlA8yr,zYn8n55,c5emIW7#0 wtlA8yr,zYn8n55,c5emIW7#1 wtlA8yr,zYn8n55,c5emIW7#2
-
PFX111,
Please provide the domain if you could. This will make it much easier for us to help you.
I seriously doubt this is a result of someone doing "negative SEO" but could not say for sure unless I can look at it myself. One thing I'd like to know is the landing page URL where these terms are sending visitors on your site from the SERPs.
-
Hi Sorina,
Thanks for your response. I did check the keywords in Google Webmaster Tools under Optimization---->Content Keywords, but i could not find any such term, which was appearing in Google Analytics. Also, i did review 200 URLs and still could not find anything related to those keywords on my website. The browser message "this website may harm your computer" is also not showing up in search results. These searches are coming from a particular city only. What should i do now to overcome this issue?
-
Irving,
I personally saw this happen on a website - it was hacked, but no malware was placed on it. So the browser message "this website may harm your computer" was not showing up, and no massage was displayed in WMT under Malware.
These are some blackhat SEO hacks, where they alter the content of a website and place links to porn/gambling without the intention to get the website flagged for malware. The hackers just want to get good links to their shallow websites, not to knock these websites out of Google.
-
If it's showing as organic traffic then it's people clicking on those links not links on your site from hacking. You would also see your site disappear from the serps and/or get the message that says "this website may harm your computer". But check your source code just to make sure the site is clean and look in WMT under MALWARE to see if there is any malware on your site.
Look at your external links and see what is going on asap, this can knock your site out.
-
Are you sure it is negative SEO or is your site actually containing these keywords?
Your website may contain that keywords if you were hacked.Go to Google Webmaster Tools and check if there, under Optimization -> Content Keywords these strange keywords appear. If they do, check your website'c source code, someone may have injected strange text/links in your code.
As for Negative SEO use opensiteexplorer.org to find those bad links and use the Disavowal Tool to block them.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Use of Keywords throughout articles
Hi everyone, I have another (very basic) question! It's about the use of keywords throughout articles - is it worthwhile putting keywords and associated phrases in bold and italic and also underlining them at various points throughout my website articles? I have read that this helps google to know what the article is about. Any comments would be much appreciated!
Branding | | ClareO0 -
How to handle knock-off product leveraging your brand keywords?
Hello all, I fear this may be a bit of newcomer question but maybe you can help me out. My business is in a highly competitive market, and when you search for our branded name many of our competitors show up in search results well before us (who don't contain, or even reference, our brand name on their site). We're trying to take a proactive approach to content development and site enhancement, but I am wondering if there's anything on the defense-front that we can do to better own our brand ranking in SERPs. Thoughts? Suggestions? Should I be reading SEO 101? Thanks
Branding | | J-Me0 -
Should the Facebook page be just the brand name or also include keywords?
Hi. Do you recommend that a company's Facebook Page be just the Brand Name, or should it include some keywords in the title?
Branding | | JonsonSwartz0 -
What should we consider in Online reputation management - negative URL or Negative Keywords?
Hello All I have a serious confusion in terms of the Negative Keywords & Positive Keywords vs Negative URLS and Positive URLS for ORM (Online Reputation Management). Can any one please advise and explain why and what should I consider?
Branding | | barnesdorf
When we talk about ORM what exactly is more important? Negative Keywords or Negative URLS? Among these two which is more important ?? Negative URLs or Negative Keywords.? Do we need to classify keywords as negative or positive? in the report? Do we need to classify URLs as negative or positive? in the report? According to me and my fellow members either of them is actually most important but we all are stuck upon at one question "which one?" Any help would be appreciated....0 -
Drop In Branded Traffic
Hi, We took on a new client in March. Over the last few months I have noticed that their Branded Organic Traffic has dropped off considerably, around 20%. On further investigation I discovered that the drop off occurred between Jan & Feb this year (prior to us taking over). In Jan they launched a new site, the drop off seems to coincide with the launch of their new website. I also found out that their Page Rank had disappeared before the launch of the new website, and is still a PR/na. My first thought was that they have been penalised. How likely is this on a very well known site which gets roughly 170K visits per month? Could the drop in Branded Traffic be due to a decrease in advertising budget elsewhere (to compensate for the cost of the new website, leading to less brand exposure)? Could it be that there are just fewer people searching for their Brand? I guess the questions I am trying to find out are: 1. What are the reasons for massive drops in Branded organic traffic? 2. As an seo I am tasked mainly for optimising for non-branded organic traffic, is there anything I can suggest to the client to help get this traffic back? 3. If it is an algorithmic penalty (Panda, Penguin), how do I know which one? I have started with their links and disavowed known toxic links, fixed crawl errors, optimised their top pages etc etc. If it was a penalty and I mange to fix it, will their branded traffic return? Any help with the above would be greatly appreciated. Jon
Branding | | JonRaubenheimer0 -
Keywording strategy
I'm optimizing my personal website which display my portfolio and the services offered for my city, Colorado Springs. The first 5 content keywords in webmasters tool in order of the signifiance are photography, clotaire, damy, colorado, springs. Should I change the order of the keywords by emphasizing more on the targeted area or on the services offered? http://clotairedamy.com
Branding | | clotairedamy0 -
Branding exact match keyword domain
We have a keyword domain name that we'd like to show up in Google stores or brand suggestion. We used this exact keyword domain name for years to sell our products but now want to take it one step further and have the domain name show up in Google suggested brands or stores. We just filed for a TradeMark in the URL (they have about 57,000 domain names with active trademarks in their database). How do we get Google to recognize this domain name as either a brand or a store? Has anybody seen an example of a store or brand with a .com or .net in Google brands or Google stores? It may be that don't even allow URLs to show. Thanks
Branding | | mozworks0 -
Using twitter to boost organic rankings
I was told that Google uses Twitter traffic as a ranking factor. How could i use Twitter to boost the rankings of my website? i play in a live band if that helps you to generate some ideas for me. Thanks in advance for everyone's input! Ron
Branding | | Ron100