GA4 Ghost Spam: how to spot, prove, and purge fake traffic spikes (real case study)

Ghost spam can inflate your GA4 numbers with fake traffic spikes.

You know that heart-stopping moment when your Realtime numbers explode? If we were a dodgy agency, we could’ve screen-grabbed the spike and sold it as “PPC success.” But in a world of AI bots, clones and competitors with… creative ethics, we choose clarity over clickbait.

Traffic spikes like this may look exciting but can often be ghost spam, not real users.

We saw a huge US spike in GA4. Exciting, for about five minutes. Then we clocked a Google Ads suspension warning for suspicious login, weird page titles we’d never published (👋 “Last Day Promotion 49% OFF – THE PANDY™… flagging for awareness please do not visit or search for this”), and zero matching visits in onsite analytics.

Translation: ghost spam fake hits injected into GA4 without real users touching the site.

Here’s exactly how we diagnosed it, secured the stack, and cleaned the reports, step by step.

Red flags to watch for (fast)

Ghost spam often shows up as suspicious traffic clusters from unexpected regions.

• Realtime map clusters in the US when you’re UK-focused.

• Pages & Screens showing titles/URLs you don’t own.

• Wix/Shopify analytics flat while GA4 surges.

• Engagement time ~0s, 1 page per session, odd referrers.

• Email from Google Ads: suspicious login / temporary suspension.

  
  

What GA4 ghost spam actually is

Spammers don’t visit your site; they push fake pageviews to your public Measurement ID. Motives: lure you to their scam domain, flog “traffic” services, or probe accounts for click-fraud opportunities.

SEO note: this doesn’t boost or harm domain authority it only pollutes analytics.

Step-by-step: monitor → confirm → fix

1) Sanity checks (2 minutes)

• Compare GA4 Realtime vs your platform analytics (Wix). If GA4 spikes but Wix is flat → likely ghost spam.

• In GA4 Traffic acquisition, scan Session source/medium for junk referrers.

• In Pages & screens, look for unknown titles/paths.
  

2) Security first (3 minutes)

• Change your Google password and enable 2-step verification.

• Admin → Access management in GA4/Ads: remove unknown users.

• Search Console → Security issues: confirm No issues detected.
  

3) Fix cross-domain oddities (1 minute)

• Admin → Data streams → Configure your domains: remove any random/unknown domain from cross-domain linking. Keep only your real domain(s).
  

4) Make sure your tag is actually live (Wix Users quirk)

• Wix → Marketing & SEO → Marketing Integrations → Google Analytics → confirm GA4 ID (e.g., G-XXXXXXXXXX).

• Hit Save + Publish even if it’s the same ID (this “kicks” Wix to push it live).

• Verify in GA4 Realtime that you appear when you visit the site.
  

5) See which referrals are real (e.g., Yell)

• Traffic acquisition → Session source/medium: real directory traffic will appear as yell.com / referral with human engagement; ghost spam won’t.
  

6) Clean reporting when custom filters aren’t available

GA4’s UI often doesn’t expose custom data filters (so you can’t create a Hostname include at property level). Do this instead:

A. Build a “Clean Traffic” Exploration

1. Explore → Blank → name it Clean Traffic Dashboard.

2. Admin → Custom definitions → Add custom dimension

   • Name: Hostname · Scope: Event · Event parameter: page_location (this lets you derive hostnames).

3. Back in Explore: Add dimension → Hostname.

4. Rows: Hostname (and optionally Page path).

5. Values: Users / Sessions / Views.

6. Filters:

   • Hostname exactly matches www.solmazmarketing.com (Use a single regex filter if you prefer: (www\.solmazmarketing\.com\.) Now you have a clean, client-ready view with only your domains.
     

B. Add a “Ghost Spam Catcher” Exploration (optional)

• Same setup, but exclude your domains to watch the junk in a separate bucket.
  

7) Optional hardening

• GTM route: If you use Google Tag Manager, set GA4 tags to fire only when {{Page Hostname}} matches your domains blocks spam at tag level.

• Google Tag Gateway (Cloudflare): advanced, server-side routing via Cloudflare for cleaner data. Useful later; not required on Wix right now.
  

8) Document the anomaly

• Add a note/annotation in your reporting docs for the spike window.

• Never click spammy titles/domains from reports.
  

Daily/weekly “sanity sweep”

Daily (2 mins): GA4 Realtime vs Wix, check top referrers, skim Pages & screens for odd titles.

Weekly (5 mins): Review Clean Traffic Exploration, compare to raw views, keep a running list of spam hostnames.

Why spammers do it (and why you shouldn’t worry)

• Free exposure if you type their domain.

• “Proof” they can drive traffic to sell you bots.

• Recon for click-fraud. Your fix above neuters the lot.
  

All in all: GA4 Ghost Spam

Those big spikes in screenshots might look impressive but they’re not real. At Solmaz Marketing, we stand for authentic, transparent growth, not vanity metrics or inflated numbers.

Yes, we offer SEO, PPC, and analytics management services but always rooted in best practice, not smoke and mirrors. If you want to boost your website traffic honestly, or you’ve noticed suspicious data or random anomalies in your own analytics platforms, we’d love to help you make sense of it.

👉 Get in touch today to start building traffic that’s measurable, meaningful, and genuinely yours.