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Question on referrers (darn spammers!)
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| I'm just having a check of the stats on my personal website, and was
noticing that most of the referrers are apparently spam sites - online
gambling, pharmacies and the like (I run a photo album site).
Is there anything I can/should do about this, or is it just the nature
of the beast. I haven't visited any of them, fearing for my system's
security if I do.
Any education or help appreciated!
jmc
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| Benjamin Niemann 2006-11-19, 7:57 pm |
| Hello,
jmc wrote:
> I'm just having a check of the stats on my personal website, and was
> noticing that most of the referrers are apparently spam sites - online
> gambling, pharmacies and the like (I run a photo album site).
>
> Is there anything I can/should do about this, or is it just the nature
> of the beast. I haven't visited any of them, fearing for my system's
> security if I do.
>
> Any education or help appreciated!
Google "referer spam" should give you much information about this.
The referer information that you can get by software which scans the
access_log files became mostly useless because of these spammers.
Just ignore them.
If you want referer statistics that are not screwed up by spammers, you'll
have to use different software which uses JS for tracking - this will not
count user-agents w/o JS, includings (spam/search)bots.
HTH
--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://pink.odahoda.de/
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| Charles Sweeney 2006-11-19, 7:57 pm |
| jmc wrote
> Is there anything I can/should do about this, or is it just the nature
> of the beast. I haven't visited any of them, fearing for my system's
> security if I do.
Nature of the beast, I would say.
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
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|
| Suddenly, without warning, Benjamin Niemann exclaimed (12-Nov-06 8:02 PM):
> Hello,
>
> jmc wrote:
>
>
> Google "referer spam" should give you much information about this.
> The referer information that you can get by software which scans the
> access_log files became mostly useless because of these spammers.
> Just ignore them.
>
> If you want referer statistics that are not screwed up by spammers, you'll
> have to use different software which uses JS for tracking - this will not
> count user-agents w/o JS, includings (spam/search)bots.
>
>
> HTH
>
Thanks. I did do the google, since I'm not making my stats public, it's
just wasted effort for the spammers, I guess. Annoying though.
I'm using a hosting service, so don't have the option of using JS. I
did see some ideas for log filtering, on a wiki entry - something my
host should maybe be doing?
Ah, well. I only get a couple hundred hits a month, and don't make any
money out of it (site's a hobby, mainly), so I'll not sweat it.
More annoyed that the spammers activities keep shutting down my host's
mail servers, until they clean things up.
jmc
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| Benjamin Niemann 2006-11-19, 7:57 pm |
| jmc wrote:
> Suddenly, without warning, Benjamin Niemann exclaimed (12-Nov-06 8:02 PM):
>
> Thanks. I did do the google, since I'm not making my stats public, it's
> just wasted effort for the spammers, I guess. Annoying though.
>
> I'm using a hosting service, so don't have the option of using JS.
If you are using an extern service (e.g. Google Analytics), you'll just have
to insert a little code snipped into your documents. No special features
are required by the hosting service.
> I
> did see some ideas for log filtering, on a wiki entry - something my
> host should maybe be doing?
This will probably involve lots of work, because you'll constantly have to
update the filter rules...
--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://pink.odahoda.de/
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| Karl Groves 2006-11-19, 7:57 pm |
| jmc <NOnewsgroupsSPAM@NOjodiBODY.HOMEus> wrote in news:4ro5e6FsclrdU1
@mid.individual.net:
> I'm just having a check of the stats on my personal website, and was
> noticing that most of the referrers are apparently spam sites - online
> gambling, pharmacies and the like (I run a photo album site).
>
> Is there anything I can/should do about this, or is it just the nature
> of the beast. I haven't visited any of them, fearing for my system's
> security if I do.
>
> Any education or help appreciated!
>
As far as I can tell, they're spamming your logs. Others have guessed it
is for one of two reasons: 1) to get you to visit their site or 2) some
SEO trick (which I can't really figure out).
I even saw a script on Hotscripts that did this.
Anyway, what I do is bounce them as part of my overall bad IP/UA/Referer
block. I have a feature in my CMS that checks new visitors when they arrive
and if they come with a bad IP, a bad UA or with a spammy referer, I send
them a 403 response and a blank page.
--
Karl Groves
www.karlcore.com
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| Karl Groves 2006-11-19, 7:57 pm |
| Karl Groves <karl@NOSPAMkarlcore.com> wrote in
news:Xns987954665F3C2karlkarlcorecom@216.196.97.136:
> jmc <NOnewsgroupsSPAM@NOjodiBODY.HOMEus> wrote in news:4ro5e6FsclrdU1
> @mid.individual.net:
>
>
> As far as I can tell, they're spamming your logs. Others have guessed
> it is for one of two reasons: 1) to get you to visit their site or 2)
> some SEO trick (which I can't really figure out).
>
> I even saw a script on Hotscripts that did this.
>
> Anyway, what I do is bounce them as part of my overall bad
> IP/UA/Referer block. I have a feature in my CMS that checks new
> visitors when they arrive and if they come with a bad IP, a bad UA or
> with a spammy referer, I send them a 403 response and a blank page.
>
Addendum - I just saw an excellent entry in Wikipedia on Referer spam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referer_spam
--
Karl Groves
www.karlcore.com
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| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Benjamin Niemann <pink@odahoda.de> wrote:
> The referer information that you can get by software which scans the
> access_log files became mostly useless because of these spammers.
Depends a lot on how much visitors you have in the first place. Referer
spam is only a very small percentage for one of my sites. An other site
with just a few visitors the referer spam almost outnumbers the real ones.
As for what one can do: check the referer variable and if it matches a
certain pattern return a -F (forbidden). That way it doesn't end up in the
access_log afaik.
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
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| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Karl Groves <karl@NOSPAMkarlcore.com> wrote:
> jmc <NOnewsgroupsSPAM@NOjodiBODY.HOMEus> wrote in news:4ro5e6FsclrdU1
> @mid.individual.net:
>
>
> As far as I can tell, they're spamming your logs. Others have guessed
> it is for one of two reasons: 1) to get you to visit their site or 2)
> some SEO trick (which I can't really figure out).
Some sites had their referer logs on a page (I had in the past), some
other sites keep dynamical lists of referers.
> Anyway, what I do is bounce them as part of my overall bad
> IP/UA/Referer block. I have a feature in my CMS that checks new
> visitors when they arrive and if they come with a bad IP, a bad UA or
> with a spammy referer, I send them a 403 response and a blank page.
Yup, that's the best way to do it.
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
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| Charles Sweeney 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| John Bokma wrote
>
> Yup, that's the best way to do it.
Hmmm. Depends how you define a "spammy" referer. Depends also, as with
all such systems, how much time you want to spend maintaining it and
chasing your tail.
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
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| Karl Groves wrote:
> jmc <NOnewsgroupsSPAM@NOjodiBODY.HOMEus> wrote in news:4ro5e6FsclrdU1
> @mid.individual.net:
>
>
> As far as I can tell, they're spamming your logs. Others have
> guessed it is for one of two reasons: 1) to get you to visit their
> site or 2) some SEO trick (which I can't really figure out).
>
> I even saw a script on Hotscripts that did this.
>
> Anyway, what I do is bounce them as part of my overall bad
> IP/UA/Referer block. I have a feature in my CMS that checks new
> visitors when they arrive and if they come with a bad IP, a bad UA or
> with a spammy referer, I send them a 403 response and a blank page.
>
>
>
> --
> Karl Groves
> www.karlcore.com
Several of my sites got hit this summer - referer spam looking for
/images/blank.gif.
I returned a 500 server error and they stopped trying in about a week.
--
dp
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| Red E. Kilowatt 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Karl Groves <karl@NOSPAMkarlcore.com> wrote in message:
Xns98795DC55F085karlkarlcorecom@216.196.97.136,
> Karl Groves <karl@NOSPAMkarlcore.com> wrote in
> news:Xns987954665F3C2karlkarlcorecom@216.196.97.136:
>
>
>
> Addendum - I just saw an excellent entry in Wikipedia on Referer spam
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referer_spam
"Sites that publicize their access logs"
Who are these sites?
--
Red
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| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote:
> John Bokma wrote
>
>
> Hmmm. Depends how you define a "spammy" referer. Depends also, as with
> all such systems, how much time you want to spend maintaining it and
> chasing your tail.
True, but the 10-20 obvious keywords are not that hard to add. I was
thinking, maybe it's fun to 301 redirect to their own site, with a nice
part after the URL :-D. OTOH, maybe those bots are mostly bad written
garbage and crash when you give a 301.
I once redirected leecher a to the image of leecher b and vice versa, with
a nice trailing message after a ?. No idea if they're still doing it.
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
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| Chris Hope 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| John Bokma wrote:
> Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote:
>
>
> True, but the 10-20 obvious keywords are not that hard to add. I was
> thinking, maybe it's fun to 301 redirect to their own site, with a
> nice part after the URL :-D. OTOH, maybe those bots are mostly bad
> written garbage and crash when you give a 301.
>
> I once redirected leecher a to the image of leecher b and vice versa,
> with a nice trailing message after a ?. No idea if they're still doing
> it.
I like that one :)
I have someone on MySpace leeching an image from one of my sites. So I
created a 1000x1000 pixel gif image and it really screws around with
their page! I haven't checked for a while to see if it's still there.
--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.com
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| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Chris Hope <blackhole@electrictoolbox.com> wrote:
> I have someone on MySpace leeching an image from one of my sites. So I
> created a 1000x1000 pixel gif image and it really screws around with
> their page! I haven't checked for a while to see if it's still there.
I once created a 4 by about 4096 pixels JPEG (which compresses very good,
and I think 4096 or so is the limit), I wonder how many visitors had to
scroll down all the way :-D. (In the end I decided to contact the hosting
provider to remove the leech, see: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/01/11/
)
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
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