[GeekVillage – cZar]

Same here. I’ve been trying them out on a number of sites and haven’t received any complaints so far. *touch wood*

Popunders and popups used to produce negative reactions – understandably given the intrusive nature of these formats – and they do reduce a site’s search engine preparedness. Hopefully, given that this is Google’s own format, these won’t affect a site’s search ranking.

I feel comfortable continuing to use this format for now.

[GeekVillage – cZar]

Thanks Exotica, and welcome to Geek/Talk.

In this case, the traffic wasn’t human. It was bots triggering Google Analytics and not even loading the website. This “referral spam” attack seems to have simultaneously affected many thousands of sites across the web, with all showing the same referral source, huge spikes in Google Analytics figures, but no actual increases in users to the websites.

If they were genuine visitors from Poland, that would be wonderful and I’d eagerly embrace the new surge interest from a new market, but alas these were not real visitors.

I remain surprised that Google wasn’t able to filter out this form of spam and although the incident has finished now, it’s curious that Google still hasn’t removed those fake numbers from reports of sites that were affected. Hopefully it won’t happen again at this scale.

[GeekVillage – cZar]

Good tips. I’m sure that you’re quite right in the need for creative solutions to stand out. It’s so hard to gain visibility from Facebook business pages with run-of-the-mill organic posts, but people remain attracted to content that is unusual and authentic.

[GeekVillage – cZar]

What a brilliant response. Thanks for the detailed hints and tips, Mohamed, and welcome to Geek/Talk. 🙂

[GeekVillage – cZar]

Thanks, Stellar Developers. That’s great advice.

In this case, integration is done correctly. This type of “referral spam” is being done deliberately. The latest attack has ended, but this seems to have affected 100s or 1000s of sites, based upon what I’ve seen being discussed on Reddit and elsewhere.

It’s great that the event has ended, but affected publishers (including myself) still have this traffic showing up in Analytics, so it pushes March stats out of whack, making it hard to see trends for this year accurately.

[GeekVillage – cZar]

Except spammers… Who amusingly have been the only people responding to this post so far. 🙂

[GeekVillage – cZar]

Thanks for the insight, Stellar Developers, and welcome to Geek/Talk. 🙂

I love that you included some meaningful stats in your response. It’s encouraging that this technique remains popular, even in the presence of generative AI technologies.

[GeekVillage – cZar]

I find it strange that Google hasn’t yet resolved this issue. Days after this issue was raised here, and elsewhere, this fake referral traffic (supposedly from Poland) is still hitting a huge number of Google Analytics accounts.

While this persists, it renders Analytics almost useless, as it’s creating a situation wherein traffic trends, growth comparisons and demographic breakdowns are out of whack as a result of bot manipulation.

Have any of you received updates on this issue from Google?

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