Semalt - How to Block Darodar Ghose Referrals from Your Site

23.05.2018
Semalt: How To Block Darodar Ghost
Referrals From Your Site
If you occasionally go through your Google Analytics, you are bound to nd some traf c referrers that stand out.
The fact that they keep reappearing in the traf c reports indicates that somebody is sending some traf c to the site.
Even so, not all referrers represent actual people. There are those that you need to block from your site.
The following article, provided by Oliver King, a top expert from Semalt, covers a procedure that removes unwanted
referrers. In this case, Darodar is the fraudulent referrer, but the method is also effective for other unwanted
referrers.
What is Darodar?
I noticed some unusual activity from a referrer going by the name Darodar. The referrer's domain continued to
appear in my logs which prompted me to visit the site and see what they were all about. The information I found
there indicated that it was a simple SEO tool. I assumed that it was a standard site crawler gathering information
from my site and let it slide. After engaging with some members of an online group on the Darodar topic, it dawned
on me that the problem was far more signi cant than I thought.
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23.05.2018
Darodar is known for its notorious habit of sending out referrer spam to many website owners. It allegedly spreads
spam by using malware that is circulated through a botnet. Even though you may not have been the victim of such
an attack, it is advisable to take precautions to block from your site this fraudulent referrer.
Preventing Darodar from accessing your site
The rst step to take is to block all suspicious domains through the .htaccess
le. Every site that uses WordPress has this le in the website's root directory.
You can get the codes to use from Paul Thompson from the Buzzwords to
Business. Once you have the code, open your existing .htaccess le and paste
it at the bottom. Save the new data. It will ensure that your site does not come
under attack from the domains listed and used by the referrers from then on.
It is important to note that fraudulent referrers have many disposable
domains and can shift at any given time. Therefore, always be cautious and
keep updating the .htaccess le.
The next step is to make sure that you remove all traces of Darodar from Google Analytics. It is important to do this
as it ensures the accuracy of GA analytics and reports. The chances are that the bounce rates from the numerous
visits from Darodar have all the data skewed. Removing referrers that use similar tactics as the Darodar bots ensure
that your e-commerce tracking and monitoring in Google Analytics does not take them into account in future. It
does not matter whether the skewness is substantial or not, under no circumstances should one base their
decisions on wrong or inaccurate statistics.
Conclusion
The current post mainly describes methods used to block Darodar from your site. The good news is that the method
works for any unwanted referrers you want to block from your site. The two will help prevent skewing your
statistics in future.
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