Social-buttons.com referral usually comes along with Free-Share-Buttons.com referral spam as the 2 are most likely related in some way (considering how similar the URLs and the current state of the sites are, it’s hard not to assume this). Because of this, I’ve created this article to show you how you can get rid of this ghost referrer spam.
How To Block Social-Buttons.com Spam: Filter Method
The easiest way (and the way I always filter out this type of referrer spam) to filter out Social-Buttons.com referrer traffic is to simply follow the instructions below:
1. Log Into Your Google Analytics Account
2. Go To Your “Admin” Tab
3. Click On “Filters” Under The “View” Section
4. Click On “+New Filter”
5. Enter The Information In The Image Below And Save
How To Block Social-Buttons.com Spam: Htaccess Method
Unless the spam traffic actually visits your site, then I see no reason for actually doing using this method.
## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} Social-Buttons.com [NC,OR] RewriteRule .* – [F]
How To Block Social-Buttons.com Spam: Deflecting Method
Again, not a recommended method, but you can create a text file called “deflector.map” and add the following code to it:
#
## deflector.map
##
##referer –> redirect target
http://Social-Buttons.com http://Social-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 Social-Buttons Referrer Spam Occur?
Similarly to Free-Share-Buttons.com, social-buttons.com no longer exists. Since there’s no cached version of the site, I’m going to make the same assumption I did last time and say that social-buttons.com referral spam was used to attract visitors who saw the URL in their Google Analytics data to a website that sold or allowed someone to download possibly malicious social sharing buttons for their site.