How to effectively eliminate spam traffic from my e-commerce store?

[Mark_K7]

Hi there,

According to our GA4 data, around 99% of our direct traffic is most likely spam - with an average engagement time of <1 second and only 4% of direct traffic coming from the UK - we're a UK based e-commerce store (lots from the US, Netherlands, Poland etc). Since 24/11/23 of 2175 direct sessions only 91 appear to be "real traffic".

This is messing with:

1. The accuracy of Google Analytics
2. The accuracy of our Shopify reporting
3. And our "quota" based extensions.
   
   

Could Shopify investigate this traffic for me and block it from their end or could someone provide recommendations to solve this? I have no visibility of IP's etc from my end of Shopify and also no control over Cloudfare to block anything - this is all managed on the Shopify side.

I've tried to get in touch with their support via live chat but they weren't very useful.

Looking forward to your response.

Cheers.

[JoshHighland]

I don't know if it will mess with your analytics, but there are apps in the app store that can block visits from other countries. Might be worth using a free trial of one and checking the results.

[Mark_K7]

Thanks Josh, I'll give it a go.

[MD733]

Hello Josh, in seeking assistance, I have been going through the SEO threads and see that you appear almost every time and offer the same help. A link to an app. Unfortunately, recommending an app is not the best source of assistance. Having said that, here's a technical issue related to this thread. 

We have had a dramatic drop in site traffic and 1000's of spam URLs attached to our domain. Of course, because these are not our site pages, they go directly to our 404 page. Many other store owners are experiencing the same issue on several other threads. Shopify claims it does not affect SEO, which is nonsense. Shortly after, these spam URLs appeared in our Google Search Console, and our site traffic plummeted. This issue has even extended to cause our domain, in some way, possibly to be flagged as spam, as we now have had numerous email subscribers unsubscribing, reporting our email as spam, and less than .0% open rates. We have changed nothing, and the only difference is these spam URLs. So, can your app fix this and everyone else's issues? 

Here are some example URL extensions being added to our domain:

/collections/vendors/index-backlinks-tool

/collections/vendors/ea-sports-fc-24-coins-black-friday

/collections/vendors/best-way-to-get-madden-coins

/collections/vendors/coin-website-fc-24

/wpm@0.0.275@e4335517w5ed8d260p080a7602mf88703fc/sandbox/?pp=1

/web-pixels-manager@0.0.186/sandbox/products/

/blogs/news/instagram-

There have been thousands of these, and even though many store owners have attempted troubleshooting by adding disavows to their liquid.theme code; these types of spam URLs continue to come back and by the 1000s, 

Most recently, here are the newest types of URL spam pages added to our domain:

/what-happens-to-your-blood-when-you-get-a-XXXXX/

/articles/can-you-donate-blood-if-you-have-a-XXXXX

/health/can-you-donate-blood-if-you-have-a-XXXXX

/style/how-long-after-a-XXXXX-can-you-take-a-bath

/does-caffeine-affect-XXXXX/

/can-XXXXX-cause-blood-poisoning

/the-problem-with-smartwatches-and-XXXXX/

/XXXXX-and-autoimmune-disease-4782059

/Remove-a-XXXXX-at-Home-With-Salt

/faq/what-happens-if-XXXXX-gets-in-your-blood

As you can see, these domain extensions are actual links someone may be searching for or, as we suspect, located as outgoing links on some blogs. And, of course, since we do not have such pages, the person is taken to our 404 page. 

These types of URLs have been the most recent since November. Because the topics are directly related to our product, this is some form of an attack. 

As an SEO expert, any suggestions? Can your app fix this?