<p>I am a strong proponent of the hostname inclusion filter approach. It works extremely well and greatly reduces the day-today maintenance required to maintain filters. The risks that you cited are real, but they are very small and are offset if you maintain an unfiltered view [like everyone should].</p> <p>If you don't want to use it, then at least do NOT use the UA-#######-1 property tracking code. Create a few more [unused] properties in your account and use the -5 or -6 or higher tracking code to DRAMATICALLY reduce your ghost spam, and the work required to maintain your filters (or segments).</p> <p><br /></p>

<p>Hi Jared,</p> <p>Thanks for the reference to my Definitive Guide article (<a href="http://www.analyticsedge.com/2014/12/removing-referral-spam-google-analytics/" rel="nofollow">http://www.analyticsedge.com/2014/12/removing-refe...</a>).</p> <p>One thing that most people don't seem to realize is that there are TWO types of spam referrals, and the techniques to remove them are DIFFERENT.</p> <p>Semalt and some others are crawlers that actually hit your website. Block them with .htaccess or a WP plugin if you can. Specific filter in GA if you can't. These are tedious to set up and maintain for spammers, so they tend to change slowly.</p> <p>Darodar and social-buttons are ghost referrals that do not hit your website. They inject directly into GA's tracking servers and cannot be blocked; they <em>must </em>be filtered. For these, a hostname filter is the way to go -- one filter catches all of them, and since they change very quickly, I highly recommend it.</p>

<p>Proof? I ran into this exact scenario - a nofollow comment to a good blog post caused a spike in rankings...but it wasn't actually my site that was ranking; it was the blog post!  Google Webmaster Tools implied it was my site!</p> <p>I wrote it up here: http://www.analyticsedge.com/2014/06/hidden-value-blog-comments-nofollow-links/</p>

We have a new alternative available that runs in Excel 2003, crosses the 10,000 row limit, and is combined with a great little business analytics engine that makes things really easy. Nextanalytics for Excel (www.nextanalytics.com). It's not free, but it's not expensive either.