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How To Remove Floating-Share-Buttons.com Referral Spam

Alistair Kavalt
Adblocker Blocker

I was checking my Google Analytics data a moment ago when I noticed another surge in referral traffic. However, this time it was not from 1, not from 2, but from 3 sources all related to Floating-Share-Buttons.com! These sources appeared in my Google Analytics data as the following:

Other subdomains you may see in your list of referrals include the following:

If you’ve also seen these referral sites in your Google Analytics data, then you should know that this referral spam is not malicious, although it’s best to avoid visiting any referral spam websites after the phishing attack that Trafficmonetize used against its visitors.

How To Block Floating-Share-Buttons.com Spam: Filter Method

I created the instructions below using both images and text to make it easier for you to understand and follow the guide. The important parts of the page that you need to click or interact with are marked with a red circle.

1. Go To The Google Analytics Website And Log Into Your Account

You can visit the website by clicking the URL in the heading or by clicking here.

2. Go To Your “Admin” Tab

The admin tab is right next to the ‘Customisation’ tab to the far right of the Google Analytics logo.

3. Click On “Filters” Under The “View” Section

Once you’re on the admin page, go to the 3rd column called “View” and click on “Filters”.

4. Click On “+New Filter”

 

There’s a big red button on the page that says “+New Filter”. It’s pretty hard to miss, so click it.

5. Enter The Information In The Image Below And Save

Normally, I would have an image here to show you how this would look in your Google Analytics Filters page, but since we’re going to be blocking 3 or more URLs, I’m going to skip the images and  leave the instructions below:

  1. Click on ‘Create New Filter‘
  2. Under ‘Filter Information‘, click on ‘Custom‘
  3. Click the “Exclude‘ button
  4. Under ‘Filter Field‘, select ‘Campaign Source‘ from the drop-down list.
  5. Under Filter Pattern, enter ‘site1.Floating-Share-Buttons.com’
  6. If you were hit by multiple referrer spam URLs, separate each URL with “|” (without the quotes) so that the Filter Pattern looks similar to this: site1.Floating-Share-Buttons.com | site2.Floating-Share-Buttons.com | site3.Floating-Share-Buttons.com.
  7. Click on ‘Save‘.
  8. Repeat steps 1 through 6 for site2 and site3.

Wait about an hour for the filter changes to take effect and you should be able to see your real Google Analytics data without the referrer spam in it.

How To Block Floating-Share-Buttons.com Spam: Htaccess Method

In every article I’ve written about ghost referrer spam, I never recommended using this method or the following method if the referrer spam is indeed ghost referrer spam that never actually visits your site as this method and the subsequent method are more suited for protecting your site from any possible sessions in the future from these sources. If you find that the traffic is taking up your server resources or you think that it may be malicious, then try using the following code in your htaccess, which should block every variation of the URL from landing on your webstie.

# Referrer SPAM
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
# floating-share-buttons
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://([^.]+\.)*floating-share-buttons\.org [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.floating-share-buttons.org [R=301,L]

 

How To Block Floating-Share-Buttons.com Spam: Deflecting Method

This is not also not a recommended method, but you can create a text file called “deflector.map” and add the following code to it (be sure to include site2 and site3 in the code):

#
## deflector.map
##
##referer –> redirect target
http://site1.Floating-Share-Buttons.com http://site1.Floating-Share-Buttons.com

 

After that, you’re going to want to add the following code to your .htaccess

RewriteMap deflector txt:/path/to/deflector.map
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !=””
RewriteCond ${deflector:%{HTTP_REFERER}} =-
RewriteRule ^ %{HTTP_REFERER} [R,L]

Why Does Floating-Share-Buttons Referrer Spam Occur?

Unlike Trafficmonetize referral spam, Floating-Share-Buttons.org doesn’t direct to a malicious website. Instead, it directs to a website called Sharebutton.to, which is a pretty plain website with a background of a boardwalk and 2 boxes that allow you to copy a couple of codes that you could use on your website. However, considering this website is engaging is questionable advertising methods (i.e., spam), I would highly suggest that you do not copy and paste any of the codes on this site.

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