news.grets.store spam traffic

[Kikerinka]

Don't you think this can negatively impact your Domain performance in Google's eyes? Your conversion, pages per visit, and time on site get crushed, no? I would think that Google bots see this (these, now) traffic sources as an attempt to falsely boost your traffic, which they would penalize you for, unless Google steps in with a patch/fix. Am I thinking about this incorrectly?

That's what I'm thinking. Unless the inept people at Google correct it they will see it as data manipulation and it will affect us.

You are both definitely right when it comes to the fact the on page metrics, such as bounce rate, average time on page, engaged time, etc, matter for rankings.

However, I believe that for a purpose of your placement in Google search, Google considers these only from your search traffic, or even only from Google traffic. Since that's what they have in control and have the best data about, and also it is hard to manipulate it...

In my opinion, the engagement data from other traffic sources (for example from referral traffic, which is the case nowadays), don't impact the Google ranking.

And when it comes to manipulating data . Well, I do not know how many of these bots visits you get. I get anywhere between 20 and 100, on different websites. Do not think that Google would consider it as some heavy traffic boost . You can buy tens of thousands of visits of bot traffic, even specific for location, for really cheap. For example over 1 million monthly bot visits for less than $50... Such services are available online, maybe even on BHW.

Hence I do not think that Google cares about couple of dozens bot visits here and there .

 

[Alf85]

Now also from Poland two more sites are:
game.fertuk.site
info.seders.website

 

[Lenz]

You are both definitely right when it comes to the fact the on page metrics, such as bounce rate, average time on page, engaged time, etc, matter for rankings.

However, I believe that for a purpose of your placement in Google search, Google considers these only from your search traffic, or even only from Google traffic. Since that's what they have in control and have the best data about, and also it is hard to manipulate it...

In my opinion, the engagement data from other traffic sources (for example from referral traffic, which is the case nowadays), don't impact the Google ranking.

And when it comes to manipulating data . Well, I do not know how many of these bots visits you get. I get anywhere between 20 and 100, on different websites. Do not think that Google would consider it as some heavy traffic boost . You can buy tens of thousands of visits of bot traffic, even specific for location, for really cheap. For example over 1 million monthly bot visits for less than $50... Such services are available online, maybe even on BHW.

Hence I do not think that Google cares about couple of dozens bot visits here and there .

Thank you for your explanations!! makes me feel a little better as I was so worried

 

[Xdfffninja]

Ohh, I thought I was the only one experiencing this. I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in this.

They have now started spamming from around 5 - 6 extra domains aside from the gret store one and it's frustrating, especially on new sites like the one I currently have which they're spamming.

My theory of this whole saga is that they have scrapped everyone's GA code and they're now spamming the codes directly from different domains at intervals without even visiting the site because Cloudflare and server logs do not record any visit from Poland on my sites.

Unfortunately, using the GA4 referral traffic exclusion doesn't do jack shit. It's a frustrating situation.

I'm thinking of creating a new GA property altogether for the site since the only site of mine that was affected is a very new site - that seems like the only solution for now unless they're still actively scrapping GA codes from sites like they did before. What do you guys think?

 

[Samuel Miller]

So far i understood they want to gain access over notification ads market. As i visited the website. Its asking me to allow the notification to verify that i am a human which means I allow there notification and get there ads running. So don't visit and do not allow notification.

 

[Polarkain]

You are both definitely right when it comes to the fact the on page metrics, such as bounce rate, average time on page, engaged time, etc, matter for rankings.

However, I believe that for a purpose of your placement in Google search, Google considers these only from your search traffic, or even only from Google traffic. Since that's what they have in control and have the best data about, and also it is hard to manipulate it...

In my opinion, the engagement data from other traffic sources (for example from referral traffic, which is the case nowadays), don't impact the Google ranking.

And when it comes to manipulating data . Well, I do not know how many of these bots visits you get. I get anywhere between 20 and 100, on different websites. Do not think that Google would consider it as some heavy traffic boost . You can buy tens of thousands of visits of bot traffic, even specific for location, for really cheap. For example over 1 million monthly bot visits for less than $50... Such services are available online, maybe even on BHW.

Hence I do not think that Google cares about couple of dozens bot visits here and there .

I got 158 yesterday on one of my newer sites, which is 2/3 of my overall traffic. That's what concerns me. 150 visits may not be deemed manipulation for your sites, but for me it's significant. I hope you are correct in how they treat this.

 

[keropikero]

Was hit by this too. Trying the internal traffic filter let's give it half an hour and see.

 

[jamie3000]

None of the solution worked for me so far and today I've started getting fake traffic from more countries.

Here is my own solution.

Because I'm fairly sure they are just scraping GA tag codes then firing requests at the GA servers like so...

string GAURL = "https://region1.google-analytics.com/g/collect?v=2&tid=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(GAToken) + "&gtm=" + generateRandomCode("alphanumeric") + "&_p=" + generateRandomCode("numbers") + "&gcd=11l1l1l1l1&cid=" + generateRandomCode("numbers") + "." + getLinuxtimestamp() + "&ul=en-us&sr=1920x1080&uaa=x86&uab=64&uafvl=Chromium%3B118.0.5993.118%7CGoogle%2520Chrome%3B118.0.5993.118%7CNot%253DA%253FBrand%3B99.0.0.0&uamb=0&uam=&uap=Windows&uapv=10.0.0&uaw=0&_s=1&sid=" + getLinuxtimestamp() + "&sct=1&seg=1&dl=" + urlEncodedWebsite + "&dt=Any%20Software%20You%20Want&en=page_view&_ss=1&_ee=1&dr=" + urlSourceEncoded;

I've just made a new tag and obfuscated the tag code....

gtag('c'+'o'+'n'+'f'+'i'+'g', 'G-H'+'809'+'F3VC'+'LR');

I doubt they'll be rendering JS on the page so they should miss this

 

[Lenz]

None of the solution worked for me so far and today I've started getting fake traffic from more countries.

Here is my own solution.

Because I'm fairly sure they are just scraping GA tag codes then firing requests at the GA servers like so...

string GAURL = "https://region1.google-analytics.com/g/collect?v=2&tid=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(GAToken) + "&gtm=" + generateRandomCode("alphanumeric") + "&_p=" + generateRandomCode("numbers") + "&gcd=11l1l1l1l1&cid=" + generateRandomCode("numbers") + "." + getLinuxtimestamp() + "&ul=en-us&sr=1920x1080&uaa=x86&uab=64&uafvl=Chromium%3B118.0.5993.118%7CGoogle%2520Chrome%3B118.0.5993.118%7CNot%253DA%253FBrand%3B99.0.0.0&uamb=0&uam=&uap=Windows&uapv=10.0.0&uaw=0&_s=1&sid=" + getLinuxtimestamp() + "&sct=1&seg=1&dl=" + urlEncodedWebsite + "&dt=Any%20Software%20You%20Want&en=page_view&_ss=1&_ee=1&dr=" + urlSourceEncoded;

I've just made a new tag and obfuscated the tag code....

gtag('c'+'o'+'n'+'f'+'i'+'g', 'G-H'+'809'+'F3VC'+'LR');

I doubt they'll be rendering JS on the page so they should miss this

You've made a new tag and that means you've lost your previous data?

 

[jamie3000]

You've made a new tag and that means you've lost your previous data?

Yep, it’s a newish site so not an issue for me personally

 

[Kikerinka]

So far i understood they want to gain access over notification ads market. As i visited the website. Its asking me to allow the notification to verify that i am a human which means I allow there notification and get there ads running. So don't visit and do not allow notification.

From a point of view of pure IM, it is an interesting idea & "marketing strategy". I have no idea what the costs are of running the campaign the way they do, and what the results will be. Hopefully not good enough for them to continue this long-term .

I got 158 yesterday on one of my newer sites, which is 2/3 of my overall traffic. That's what concerns me. 150 visits may not be deemed manipulation for your sites, but for me it's significant. I hope you are correct in how they treat this.

158 is a lot. Perhaps they target newer sites on purpose, since they suppose such sites don't get that much organic traffic, and their owners will notice the referrals in analytics (and go and check the domain, and click the notifications etc).

I also notice this traffic on my smaller sites. For example, the website from my journey here, the spam traffic is close to 1/2 of the entire traffic now... However, I still believe it won't affect the way Google perceives your website, and how it positions you in their search results. But it is annoying no doubt.

None of the solution worked for me so far and today I've started getting fake traffic from more countries.

Here is my own solution.

Because I'm fairly sure they are just scraping GA tag codes then firing requests at the GA servers like so...

string GAURL = "https://region1.google-analytics.com/g/collect?v=2&tid=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(GAToken) + "&gtm=" + generateRandomCode("alphanumeric") + "&_p=" + generateRandomCode("numbers") + "&gcd=11l1l1l1l1&cid=" + generateRandomCode("numbers") + "." + getLinuxtimestamp() + "&ul=en-us&sr=1920x1080&uaa=x86&uab=64&uafvl=Chromium%3B118.0.5993.118%7CGoogle%2520Chrome%3B118.0.5993.118%7CNot%253DA%253FBrand%3B99.0.0.0&uamb=0&uam=&uap=Windows&uapv=10.0.0&uaw=0&_s=1&sid=" + getLinuxtimestamp() + "&sct=1&seg=1&dl=" + urlEncodedWebsite + "&dt=Any%20Software%20You%20Want&en=page_view&_ss=1&_ee=1&dr=" + urlSourceEncoded;

I've just made a new tag and obfuscated the tag code....

gtag('c'+'o'+'n'+'f'+'i'+'g', 'G-H'+'809'+'F3VC'+'LR');

I doubt they'll be rendering JS on the page so they should miss this

That's an interesting workaround!

 

[keropikero]

On one more my sites they sent 500 over 3 days, more than my own real traffic.

Don't know if it's due to this as well, the GA reports won't load on another one of my sites all day. "Internal error"

 

[Diske]

I got so pissed off with this that I decided to just not look at GA for some time. I was a bit curious that I had to do a little sneak peak today and it seems that the Poland bot traffic dropped completely. How's the situation for you guys?

 

[Lenz]

I got so pissed off with this that I decided to just not look at GA for some time. I was a bit curious that I had to do a little sneak peak today and it seems that the Poland bot traffic dropped completely. How's the situation for you guys?

I have one or two nowadays from Poland. I guess they're leaving already lol

 

[Polarkain]

I have one or two nowadays from Poland. I guess they're leaving already lol

It started to subside, but came back up over 150 yesterday...

 

[Lenz]

Same fml

 

[Mehrtab]

facing the same issue, will try some wordpress premium plugins. Wordfence will work fine? any idea?

 

[malayan]

facing the same issue, will try some wordpress premium plugins. Wordfence will work fine? any idea?

I'm facing a similar issue, almost 1,000 visits from the grets domain, completely mucking up my stats. So I'm just using Cloudflare firewall rules.