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Strange stuff in Referer Stats
 
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:40 pm    Post subject: Strange stuff in Referer Stats Reply with quote

Hi John,

Recently I've begun to see strings of 3, 4, or even more URLs combined as individual results in the stats lines. It's almost as though the server was collecting the entire history of sites visited in a given window or tab. Sometimes they include one or two URLs from my blog.

It is useful to see the preceding site only if it is a search result, or another site that actually is linking. Otherwise, the data isn't helpful; it makes me feel like a voyeur. Mad I don't care what other sites a person might visit before coming to my blog, unless they're coming to it because of something at another site.

I've come to the conclusion that when I see an URL that is neither a search engine nor a linking site, the visitor used a bookmark to open my site in a window or tab where they'd been visiting other sites. Of course, I could be wrong. Smile

Can you explain these results, or do you have any idea what is going on?

Thanks,
gristgal
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Strange stuff in Referer Stats Reply with quote

It's almost as though the server was collecting the entire history of sites visited in a given window or tab.

No web server can collect information from a web browser in that fashion.

Can you explain these results, or do you have any idea what is going on?

I looked at your log file and it is pretty clear that this is exactly the referer string that was sent. What you are looking at are apparently attempts at comment spamming, with a little malformed referer spam thrown in for good measure I guess.

Nothing we can do to prevent them from attempting this sort of thing, unfortunately...
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks!

I kinda wondered whether it could have anything to do with spam, but I really couldn't imagine how. I've noted that I get some of the same ones repeatedly. I guess maybe some spammers develop habits of spamming the same sites repeatedly. That makes sense, as there's the dork who keeps saying (s)he has "blogged about the same subject. Please check [them] out."

If they had a clue how dumb they look from our perspective, they might be too embarrassed to go back to the same sites. Razz I can see a 12 or 13 year old doing that kind of stuff repeatedly. I guess the (alleged) grownups who do are simply cases of arrested development?? Twisted Evil

I'm really glad I asked. Thanks again! As I've said before, I find the referer stats very useful. I just wish I'd started looking at them long ago.
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