On January 31, Google Analytics accounts were hit with a large spike classified as a “landing page” (coming from Google) from one of these four referrals: /bottraffic.live /trafficbot.life /bot-traffic.xyz /bot-traffic.icu
In your Google Analytics Property, navigate to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages, and you may see an uptick in traffic based on the bottraffic/trafficbot anomaly.
If you receive a lot of traffic, type .*trafficbot.*|.*traffic-bot.*|.*bot-traffic.*|.*bottraffic.* into the search box’s regex to find this bot traffic.
Although most of our Google Analytics properties have the “Filter for Known Bots” selected, as well as custom spam filters set up by Overdrive and development teams, spam is a constant challenge for web analytics platforms.
Temporary Solution: If you need to review data in January-February 2021, review the screenshot below to exclude bot traffic from displaying in your Google Analytics views.
- In your GA account Admin Settings, go to View --> View Settings.
- Look for "Bot Filtering" and check "Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders."
Long-Term Solution: Keep fighting Google Analytics Spam by asking your development team to add this filter in your GA Property Filter settings or use your CDN or .htaccess file to exclude these Request URI’s.
- Add .*trafficbot.*|.*traffic-bot.*|.*bot-traffic.*|.*bottraffic.* to your exclusion filter (below; include all periods)
- Must include a backslash for individual bot entries
