Google Analytics has taken a hit lately in the form of referral spamming, or spoofing. I started to notice it in my own reports, then came across this article.
We manage search engine optimization and search marketing for a number of our clients. Some are SMEs with local markets that have naturally small amounts of traffic. This month I started preparing the report for one client and my jaw dropped: a 500% increase in traffic:
However a quick filter by country showed that 90% of the new traffic is from Russia. Not their market by any stretch.