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• Stopping Referrer Spam

  13 mai 2015, par Piwik Core Team — Community

  In this blog post we explain what is Referrer spam, this new kind of spam that has recently appeared on the Internet. We also provide solutions to stop it and preserve the quality of your analytics data.

  What is Referrer Spam ?

  Referrer spam (also known as log spam or referrer bombing) is a kind of spamming aimed at web analytics tools. A spammer bot makes repeated web site requests using a fake referrer URL to the site the spammer wishes to advertise.

  Here is an example of referrer spam in action :

  

  Half of those referrers are spams, here are some well know spammers that you may have seen in your logs : buttons-for-you-website.com, best-seo-offer.com, semalt.com…

  The benefit for spammers is that their website will appear in analytics tools like Piwik or Google Analytics :

  • public analytics reports (or logs) will be indexed by search engines : links to the spammer’s website will improve its ranking
  • curious webmasters are likely to visit their referrers, thus bringing traffic to the spammer’s website

  How to deal with Referrer Spam ?

  Referrer spam is still new and analytics tools are all handling it differently.

  Referrer Spam in Piwik

  At Piwik we started working on mitigating Referrer spam more than a year ago. If you use Piwik and keep it up to date, you do not need to do anything.

  Referrer spammers are automatically excluded from your reports to keep your data clean and useful.

  New spammers are continuously detected and added to Piwik’s blacklist on each update. If you find a new spammer in your analytics data, you can even report it so that it is added to the Piwik’s open referrer blacklist and blocked for everyone.

  Referrer Spam in Google Analytics

  Google Analytics doesn’t offer any spam protection by default. It can however be configured manually using a custom Filter.

  To create a filter in Google Analytics go to the Admin section and click on All Filters. Create a new custom filter that excludes based on the Campaign Source field. In the Filter pattern enter the spammers domains you want to exclude (this is a regular expression) :

  

  If new spammers arise you will need to update this list. You can also use Piwik’s referrer blacklist to exclude all the spammers currently detected.

  Other Analytics Tools

  Many web analytics tools do not yet handle Referrer spam and when using these tools, you will often find a lot of spam data in your Referrer Websites analytics reports.

  If you use an analytics tool that does not exclude Referrer spam, we recommend to contact the vendor and ask them to implement a mechanism to remove these referrer spammers. As of today many analytics vendors still have not mitigated this issue.

  Public List of Referrer Spammers

  At Piwik with the help of our large community we have decided to tackle this growing spam issue. We have created a list of up to date referrer spammers that anyone can edit.

  The list is available in a simple text file on Github : github.com/piwik/referrer-spam-blacklist.

  The list is released under the Public Domain and anyone can use it within their applications to exclude referrer spammers.

  Many people have already contributed new spammers to the list. We invite you to use the list in your apps and websites and help us keep the list up to date !

  Let’s unite and fight the spammers together.

  Happy Analytics !

• Stopping Referrer Spam

  13 mai 2015, par Piwik Core Team — Community

  In this blog post we explain what is Referrer spam, this new kind of spam that has recently appeared on the Internet. We also provide solutions to stop it and preserve the quality of your analytics data.

  What is Referrer Spam ?

  Referrer spam (also known as log spam or referrer bombing) is a kind of spamming aimed at web analytics tools. A spammer bot makes repeated web site requests using a fake referrer URL to the site the spammer wishes to advertise.

  Here is an example of referrer spam in action :

  

  Half of those referrers are spams, here are some well know spammers that you may have seen in your logs : buttons-for-you-website.com, best-seo-offer.com, semalt.com…

  The benefit for spammers is that their website will appear in analytics tools like Piwik or Google Analytics :

  • public analytics reports (or logs) will be indexed by search engines : links to the spammer’s website will improve its ranking
  • curious webmasters are likely to visit their referrers, thus bringing traffic to the spammer’s website

  How to deal with Referrer Spam ?

  Referrer spam is still new and analytics tools are all handling it differently.

  Referrer Spam in Piwik

  At Piwik we started working on mitigating Referrer spam more than a year ago. If you use Piwik and keep it up to date, you do not need to do anything.

  Referrer spammers are automatically excluded from your reports to keep your data clean and useful.

  New spammers are continuously detected and added to Piwik’s blacklist on each update. If you find a new spammer in your analytics data, you can even report it so that it is added to the Piwik’s open referrer blacklist and blocked for everyone.

  Referrer Spam in Google Analytics

  Google Analytics doesn’t offer any spam protection by default. It can however be configured manually using a custom Filter.

  To create a filter in Google Analytics go to the Admin section and click on All Filters. Create a new custom filter that excludes based on the Campaign Source field. In the Filter pattern enter the spammers domains you want to exclude (this is a regular expression) :

  

  If new spammers arise you will need to update this list. You can also use Piwik’s referrer blacklist to exclude all the spammers currently detected.

  Other Analytics Tools

  Many web analytics tools do not yet handle Referrer spam and when using these tools, you will often find a lot of spam data in your Referrer Websites analytics reports.

  If you use an analytics tool that does not exclude Referrer spam, we recommend to contact the vendor and ask them to implement a mechanism to remove these referrer spammers. As of today many analytics vendors still have not mitigated this issue.

  Public List of Referrer Spammers

  At Piwik with the help of our large community we have decided to tackle this growing spam issue. We have created a list of up to date referrer spammers that anyone can edit.

  The list is available in a simple text file on Github : github.com/piwik/referrer-spam-blacklist.

  The list is released under the Public Domain and anyone can use it within their applications to exclude referrer spammers.

  Many people have already contributed new spammers to the list. We invite you to use the list in your apps and websites and help us keep the list up to date !

  Let’s unite and fight the spammers together.

  Happy Analytics !

• Matomo’s privacy-friendly web analytics software named best of the year 2022

  25 janvier 2023, par Erin

  W3Tech names Matomo ‘Traffic Analysis Tool of the Year 2022’ in its Web Technologies of the Year list of technologies that gained the most sites

  Matomo, a world-leading open-source web analytics platform, is proud to announce that it has received W3Tech’s award for the best web analytics software in its Web Technologies of the Year 2022. Matomo is the first independent, open-source tool named Traffic Analysis Tool of the Year – with previous winners including Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel.


  W3Tech, a trusted source for web technology research, determines winners for its annual Web Technologies of the Year list by technologies that gained the most websites. W3Tech surveys usage across millions of websites globally – comparing the number of sites using a technology on January 1st of one year with the number of sites using it the following year.

  W3Tech commenting on the Traffic Analysis Tool winners, said : “Matomo, the privacy-focused open source analytics platform, is the traffic analysis tool of the year for the first time, while Google Analytics and the other previous winners all lost a bit of market share in 2022. The Chinese Baidu Analytics ranks second this year. Snowplow, another open source tool, is an unexpected third.”


  Matomo launched in 2007 as an open-source analytics alternative to Google Analytics, keeps businesses GDPR and CCPA-compliant. Matomo is trusted by over 1.4 million websites in 220 countries and is translated into over 50 languages.


  Matomo founder Matthieu Aubry says, “As the first independent, open-source traffic analysis tool to receive this recognition, Matomo is humbled and honoured to lead the charge for change. It’s a testament to the hard work of our community, and it’s a clear sign that consumers and organisations are looking for ethical alternatives.


  “This recognition is a major win for the entire privacy movement and proves that the tide is turning against the big tech players who I believe have long prioritised profits over privacy. We are committed to continuing our work towards a more private and secure digital landscape for all.”


  In W3Tech’s Web Technologies of the Year 2022, Matomo was also judged third Tag Manager, behind Google Tag Manager and Adobe DTM.


  Matomo helps businesses and organisations track and optimise their online presence allowing users to easily collect, analyse, and act on their website and marketing data to gain a deeper understanding of their visitors and drive conversions and revenue. With 100% data ownership, customers using the company’s tools get the power to protect their website user’s privacy – and where their data is stored and what’s happening to it, without external influence. Furthermore, as the data is not sampled, it maintains data accuracy. 


  Aubry says its recent award is a positive reminder of how well this solution is performing internationally and is a testament to the exceptional quality and performance of Matomo’s powerful web analytics tools that respect a user’s privacy.


  “In 2020, the CJEU ruled US cloud servers don’t comply with GDPR. Then in 2022, the Austrian Data Protection Authority and French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) ruled that the use of Google Analytics is illegal due to data transfers to the US. With Matomo Cloud, the customer’s data is stored in Europe, and no data is transferred to the US. On the other hand, with Matomo On-Premise, the data is stored in your country of choice.


  “Matomo has also become one of the most popular open-source alternatives to Google Analytics for website owners and marketing teams because it empowers web professionals to make business decisions. Website investment, collateral, and arrangement are enriched by having the full picture and control of the data.”

  

  About Matomo

  Matomo is a world-leading open-source web analytics platform, trusted by over 1.4 million websites in 220 countries and translated into over 50 languages. Matomo helps businesses and organisations track and optimise their online presence allowing users to easily collect, analyse, and act on their website and marketing data to gain a deeper understanding of their visitors and drive conversions and revenue. Matomo’s vision is to create, as a community, the leading open digital analytics platform that gives every user complete control of their data.

  For more information/ press enquiries Press – Matomo