Is there a way to get this point across to Google?

10 replies
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Hi

Yeah, I know. Talking to the 900 lbs gorilla seldom does any good...

But it has been sending me traffic for irrelevant terms...

For instance - I have been getting a lot of traffic lately for a search relating to social sharing icons, and another for EU cookie compliance.

The question is this:

Is there a way to tell Google to index the content, and nothing else?

For instance - I remember when I still did Adsense, there was a code snippet I used to define the start and end of the content to be used for contextual matching of the ads.

Is there anything similar that can be done for content indexing?

(or even better, a wordpress plugin?)

Because the traffic I am getting from these unrelated (to my content) searches is messing up my bounce rate, which has a ripple effect.

Thanx

Peter
#content #google #point
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    You need to look at the text versions of your webpages.

    Assuming the traffic is legit Google traffic and not someone messing with you (fake referrer traffic).
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  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    Hi Yukon

    See the screenshots below - that's the actual search terms according to Google Analytics

    http://www.write4cash.net/wp-content...6/Picture1.jpg

    here's the search terms breakdown:

    http://www.write4cash.net/wp-content...6/Picture2.jpg

    When you say "look at the text version" - do you mean the page source? And what am I looking for in there?

    Thanx
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
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    Are you actually ranked for irrelevant keywords that get traffic? Have you looked at Google SERPs with a clean browser history/cache? If you're not actually ranked it's fake bot traffic.

    If you're ranked then it's because you have plain text or followed backlink anchor-text for the problem keywords.

    Google doesn't rank pages unless the keyword is mentioned somewhere. This could also be similar keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    Well, whether it is fake or not is irrelevant. The fact is that visitors are arriving via Google because of it, and the bounce rate sucks.

    The only thing I can think of is that it is somehow related to the social sharing buttons. It might be hackers using software to search for footprints in sites with potential vulnerabilities. But that doesn't make the problem any less real.

    Hence my question - is there a way to tell Google NOT to index anything other than my content? I assume if the rest is still do-follow, Google will still be able to see my site's structure.

    Of course, I am slightly annoyed by the traffic sent from searches to the EU cookie law - because my privacy policy is set to no-index. And I can't do a no-follow on that. But if I can somehow specify the areas to be recognized as indexable content, I might be able to take care of that as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by grumpyjacksa View Post

      Well, whether it is fake or not is irrelevant. The fact is that visitors are arriving via Google because of it, and the bounce rate sucks.

      The only thing I can think of is that it is somehow related to the social sharing buttons. It might be hackers using software to search for footprints in sites with potential vulnerabilities. But that doesn't make the problem any less real.

      Hence my question - is there a way to tell Google NOT to index anything other than my content? I assume if the rest is still do-follow, Google will still be able to see my site's structure.

      Of course, I am slightly annoyed by the traffic sent from searches to the EU cookie law - because my privacy policy is set to no-index. And I can't do a no-follow on that. But if I can somehow specify the areas to be recognized as indexable content, I might be able to take care of that as well.
      I think what Yukon meant is that the traffic can be spoofed to loo like it came from Google, but may not actually be Google. If you do not see your site ranking for those keywords, chances are it is spoofed.

      Also, I would not really worry about the impact on bounce rate. That is not a ranking factor and nothing that is going to harm your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi grumpyjacksa,

    Those are probably not visitors to your website, that looks like Ghost Spam, a type of referrer spam that sends data to Google Analytics but does not actually visit your website.

    Ghost spam is generated by firing a Google Analytics tag, that uses your tracking ID, from a unauthorized remote server. There is no visit to your website, it is false data generated deliberately by spammers.

    You can block Ghost spam from corrupting your data by using a simple Hostname filter the includes traffic only from valid hostnames.

    First, verify that it is indeed Ghost Spam by clicking the Secondary Dimension button on that same report and selecting hostname as the secondary dimension for your report.

    The hostname column will indicate which website triggered the GA tracking tag. If it wasn't your website, or a valid 3rd party that you place your analytics onto, then it likely was ghost spam.

    Next, create a filter by following instructions found on this page:
    https://moz.com/blog/stop-ghost-spam...ith-one-filter

    Problem solved.

    By the way, I recommend that you create a new View for your web Property and leave your original view to track all unfiltered traffic. This way you can see the difference between unfiltered and filtered traffic, and verify that you are filtering exactly what you intended to filter and nothing else.
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  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    Don - thanx a million. Will check it out now.

    Mike - spoofing google analytics.... ouch. Point taken. Thanx for clearing that up.

    Bounce rate - I vaguely remember a video from Matt Cutts in the past where he said a high bounce rate is usually indicative of low quality content...

    So yes, it kinda bugs me, especially since my site isn't getting much traffic, and the spoof traffic accounts for almost half of my total SE traffic - with a 100% bounce rate.

    Yukon - my apologies. I responded out of ignorance. No excuse.
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  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    Mike, Don - question:

    (I read the post on Moz)

    That post seems to deal with referral traffic.

    Can ghost spam fake search traffic numbers as well?

    (if you look at the screenshots I provided in the 3rd post on this thread, you will see that analytics didn't give google as a referrer, but showed the sources a google searches)

    Lastly - whether I rank for those keywords or not...

    Will have to go check it out. I guess one can search for insource:"mydomain" "illogicalsearchterm" to see if I do.
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi grumpyjacksa,

    Yes, the referral spammers can spoof any of the UTM parameters to make the UTM source look like it comes from a legitimate website. Spoofing the keyword UTM is just one their ways of spamming their website address. However, ghost spammers are typically sending ghost spam to random GA tracking IDs and they have no idea where it is ending up. That is why valid hostname filtering is so effective at filtering Ghost Spam from your Google Analytics data.

    Spoofing UTM parameters is a very simple task. Google even provides a Custom Campaign URL builder tool that makes it easy for anyone to track any campaign from any source using whatever UTM parameters they choose.

    p.s. Have you linked your search console account to your Google Analytics account? That is the only way to get accurate search traffic data into your Google Analytics account.
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  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    Hi Don - thanx for clearing that up.

    Accounts linked up - nope, not yet. Will do, thanx.
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