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Referral Spam Hitting Google AdSense Publishers Too

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referral spam adsenseIt seems as though those annoying Google Analytics referral spammers have a new target – your Google AdSense account.  Last week I noticed that there were some new sites that popped up under the “Sites” report that show all domains that ads are displayed on.

Semalt has been the largest referral spammer in Google Analytics, although there are now many other sites that attempt to rival it.  But Semalt.com has found a brand new way to referral spam but this time through AdSense spam.

This time, the spam referral is for success-seo.com which redirects to Semalt.com.

The problem seems to have only started in the last week or so, and I confirmed it with a couple of other publishers as well.  We do know Google is working on a Google Analytics referral spam solution, so perhaps the referral spammers are trying to find a new way to referral spam.  However, since many people tend to watch their AdSense accounts closely for any unknown activity, many people will likely notice it.

The good news is that Google appears to be filtering these out to some extend.  I show 99 page views where they used my AdSense code, but only 4 impressions were actually registered, with $0 revenue.  All the actual impressions were on the same date – August 20, 2015.

But it also shows up as an “Unclaimed site” under the Google AdSense “Site Management” tool.

There is a chance it is something with a Google Analytics referral spam attempt gone awry.  However, the referral spam for the success-seo site in Google Analytics is for earlier in the week compared to the AdSense ones.

Publishers can use the “Site authorization” tool in AdSense to only allow certain sites to show ads for the AdSense account, for those concerned about this new referral spam.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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