WordPress plugin intelligence profile

WP Block Referrer Spam

Block 250+ spam sites, such as semalt.com and 4webmasters.org! Keep your website safe and your Google Analytics statistics clean and accurate.

WP PlugIndex snapshot

Current directory snapshot

Tested up to WordPress 4.2
Current version1.4
WordPress coverageTested up to WordPress 4.2
Minimum stackWP 3.2 · PHP —
Directory statusactive
Last directory update20 Jul 201511y ago
Active installations60Adoption metric — not a quality score
WordPress.org rating2.5 / 5 from 4 ratings
Official packageDirect from WordPress.org

Repository metrics are context, not quality scores. Active installations measure adoption and can strongly reflect a plugin’s age and historical popularity. Ratings, recent updates and “Tested up to” metadata also do not guarantee modern code, error-free operation, security, feature completeness or suitability for a particular site. Why active installs don’t tell the whole story →

WP PlugIndex currently records WP Block Referrer Spam version 1.4 as active, updated 11y ago and tested up to WordPress 4.2.

Overview

About this plugin

Keep your WordPress site safe and away from referrer spam attacks!

Not compatible with multisite yet

This plugin blocks spam sites and referrer spammers from reaching your website, keeping your Google Analytics statistics clean and accurate. It also improves the overall performance of your site by keeping away these unwanted referrers from your website, which means that your web server won’t need to consume resources when a referrer spammer visits your site!

Why you should use this plugin?

It is very common to be attacked by referrer spammers. Referrer spam consists in making repeated web site requests using a fake referer URL to the site the spammer wishes to advertise.

Sites that publish their access logs, including referrer statistics, will then inadvertently link back to the spammer’s site. These links will be indexed by search engines as they crawl the access logs.

This benefits the spammer because the free link improves the spammer site’s search engine ranking owing to link-counting algorithms that search engines use.

This is not really harmful for your site or your site’s search engine ranking. But it is very annoying when you try to analize your Google Analytics statistics due to big amounts of visits coming from referrer spammers.

How can I check if my site is being attacked by referrer spammers?

It is very easy to check if your site is being attacked by referrer spamers. And I bet you that more than likely your site has some suscpicious visits that could be banned using this plugin.

  • Open your Google Analytics account
  • Select the statistics of the site that you want to check
  • Expand Acquisition menu
  • Expand All Traffic menu
  • Go to Referrals menu
  • Underneath the graphic you will see the list of referred traffic
  • If you see weird domains like trafficmonetize.org, webmonetizer.net or buttons-for-website.com it means that your site is suffering referrer spam attacks

Compatibility:

This plugin is fully compatible with any webserver by default.

Its adaptability ensures that will work with any version of either apache, nginx, iis or lighttpd webserver.

  • When apache is used, the plugin adds specific rules into.htaccess file.
  • When apache is not used, the plugin automatically recognizes it and uses internal code rules to keep away spammers.

Not compatible with multisite yet

3

The most updated Referrer Spam List:

Every week, this plugin updates the list of referrer spammers from this community-contributed list of referrer spammers.

Please show your support for this plugin by giving it a rating

com/rrodrigonuez/WP-Block-Referrer-Spam

Pull requests are more than welcome!

WordPress.org metadata

Plugin tags

Topics listed for this plugin in the WordPress.org directory.

  • analytics block
  • analytics blocker
  • analytics spam
  • block analytics
Compatibility & maintenance

Compatibility & maintenance

Tested up to WordPress 4.2

Not yet marked as tested with WordPress 7.1. WordPress.org currently lists Tested up to 4.2.

Current WordPress releaseWordPress 7.1
WordPress.org Tested up to4.2
Minimum requirementsWordPress 3.2 · PHP not listed
Update activity20 Jul 201511y ago

“Tested up to” is directory metadata supplied by the plugin author. WP PlugIndex does not turn an older declaration into a claim that the plugin is incompatible.

Changes recorded by WP PlugIndex

Recent tracked changes

No tracked version or compatibility changes have been recorded by WP PlugIndex yet.

Tracking & source

WP PlugIndex tracks public WordPress.org directory metadata and records selected version, compatibility and availability changes as they are detected.

Plugin watchlist

Watch this plugin

Sign in to your WP PlugIndex account or create a free account. Free accounts can watch up to 5 plugins and see what changed.

Watch limit

Watchlist limit reached

You have reached your current active watch limit.