Referrer Spam Abuse Internet

Referrer Spam Abuse Internet

Some websites collect data on visitors to their website. One bit of gathered data is the address of the website the visitors came from. This address can be faked, and referrer logs are increasingly being filled with "visits" from sites with innocent-looking addresses - but they are actually porn or herbal medicine or other spammy sites. The spam might not be noticed unless they are in the top 10 or top 20 visitors of a site -- so they relentlessly visit a site in order to push their address to the top of the analysis chart. This is referrer spamming.

Top: Computers: Internet: Abuse: Referrer Spam

See Also:

ihelpyou.com: Why You Shouldn't Publish Your Web Logs - Forum thread explaining that you should not publish your website statistics online, because of referrer spam.
Capn Design Archives: Referrer Spam is Out of Control - Weblog entry with a few coding suggestions and examples to thwart the spammers.
kuro5hin.org - Referrer log spam - An early article noting website visits from spammers.
MetaFilter - Referer Log Spam - Talks about companies like mastodonte.com and their business models of spamming referrer logs.
Kasia in a Nutshell: Spamming through Referrer Logs - A weird referrer entry prompts some detective work and a log sanitization spree.
AngryPets.com: ReverseDOS - A free tool by Michael Campbell to stop comment and referrer spam by serving up an access denied response to spammer's bots.
Wired: When the Spam Hits the Blogs - Strange things are afoot in blogland. Owners of weblogs have recently noticed that their referral logs have become the newest target for spam.
Referrer Log Spamming - Brief description of the technique and the purpose, with some examples.
ILoveJackDaniels.com: Block Referrer Spam - Dave Child provides a blacklist of spamming sites which can be used in an .htaccess file on an Apache server to block referrer spam.
Redemption in a Blog: Smarter Referrer Spam? - Blatant referrer spam may be evolving into more a subtle game.
Sam Ruby: Referrer Spam - Weblog entry discussing ongoing problems and solutions.

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