Codezwiz >> Forums >> The Board >> Referer Spam -- Are you helping them?

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I didn't pay too much attention to the http referers on my site until recently. I always considered it a good thing to have several places which linked to my site, and I had a way to look back and see where the link was coming from.

That is until recently.

Recently I noticed numerous pron sites were showing up on my referer listing. Now my site doesn't quite rate adult content, so I was quite curious to find out just why they were linking to me. A quick click on the referer link lead to a pron site, but I couldn't locate a link to my site anywhere. That was a good thing, but I couldn't help but wonder why they kept showing up on my site.

A little research revealed the answer. It seems some pron sites are a little more than willing to use my site to help their own. For a little more information regarding this, I found an excellent article here:
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For those who don't want to read an entire article, here's the short version.

It seems these sites are using YOUR server's log files to boost THEIR popularity. Here's a little of what the above listed article had to say:

Why go to the effort of leaving a web site address in someone else's log files?

Most web servers have the ability to log an extensive amount of information about web sites visitors. Many webmasters and bloggers use web-based software to parse those log files automatically. The result is one or more pages breaking the information down into very detailed statistics. These statistics include the referer information and often those referers are displayed as hyperlinks.

Bloggers quite often will display a link to the most frequent or most recent web site found in their referer logs using scripts. Some will even put those links right on the front page of their site in a sidebar area.

Unscrupulous web site owners are spamming the log files in order to have their web sites listed on those referer links. This creates an artificial boost in that site's popularity among those search engines that measure the number of links to a site. It also generates traffic when curious visitors of a victim site clicks the links displayed in the referer listing.

Simply put, these people are running advertisements on your web site and using it to boost their search engine rankings. They do this without your knowledge, without your permission, and without compensating you in any way for the use of your network.

Maybe keeping an eye on the http referers isn't such a bad thought after all.

Any comments?

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Checking the referrers list is always something I have done from the start. It helps me get an idea of what types of sites use the recipe block and also what types are just providing a link back to my site. So far no porn sites...lol.

RedWolf

Just a quick note, that referers list has to be stored somewheres in your site, you ever thought that the bigger it gets the slower your site will run???

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