Note: I’ve heard from a couple of people that semalt was still showing up after implementing this. I recommend that you follow the directions in this post, then set up a filter that will specifically block the semalt domain using the instructions found here. -ed.
You know what’s really annoying? Having your Google Analytics reports skewed by bots and crawlers such as semalt.com. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Go look at your referrers in Google Analytics. Chances are Semalt is there, stopping by every day for a quick visit or two, and then bouncing.
Semalt is an SEO tool with a shady reputation. Plenty of people have posted to forums with questions like “how do I block semalt from Google Analytics?”, or “how do I remove semalt”?. There are solutions involving modifications to the code on your website, and there is even a way to request that your site not be crawled from the company itself.
However, I’d rather not fiddle around with website code if I don’t have to. I’d also rather not interact with and give my web address to a potentially shady company. And most of all, I don’t want to go through this mess every time a new company decides to create a web spider that messes up everybody’s stats! These bots inflate web stats such as visitor sessions, bounce rate and visit duration. Not good!
But here’s some good news. Google Analytics has a feature to block semalt and other known bots and spiders from your analytics reports. And here’s a step by step guide to enable it. Best of all, it takes about 2 minutes and requires no expertise.
Block semalt.com (and other known bots) from Google Analytics By Checking a Box
- Log into Google Analytics. Click the Admin button at the top.
- You will see 3 columns: Account, Property, and View. Under View, click View Settings.
- Scroll down and check the box that says “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders”.
And there you have it! You’ve just blocked semalt.com and a bunch of other spiders and bots from polluting your Google Analytics reports. High five!
How is this working for you? Any questions about Google Analytics? Leave a comment below!
As a representative of Semalt I’d like to clarify the details.
Semalt bots harvest statistics for web analytics service and cause no harm. Semalt crawler bots have 100% bounce rate and don’t click on advertising banners (cpc, cpa, cpm systems) or extend links. All the visits are automatic and random.
If you want to exclude your site from Semalt database, please follow this link: http://semalt.com/project_crawler.php
Please, make sure you have specified the subdomains of your sites as well. http:// is required.
We thank to all users who show understanding.
Hi Nataliya,
I did this for some sites and it did work. However, I don’t think it’s right to force people to opt out of something they never signed up for. Your service has a bad reputation, and for good reason. Hopefully this new GA feature will stop bad and annoying services such as semalt from skewing GA stats in the future.
I do not recommend that people enter their web address on the semalt website.
Dear Brent, probably you didn’t enter all the subdomains. The point is that Semalt system identifies a subdomain as a separate site.
Not sure what your point is Nataliya, but thanks for chiming in. Again, I don’t recommend that people follow your instructions. They should follow the directions in this post instead… excluding known bots and spiders from GA (and setting up a filter if that doesn’t work).
Thanks for the information