Referer spam
Spammers are everywhere. After mail spam, comment spam, wiki spam, in case you didn’t know, now there’s also referer spam.
The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referer url pointing to a spam-advertised site. Sites that publicize their access logs, including referer statistics, will then also link to the spammer’s site. This benefits the spammer because of the free link, and also gives the spammer’s site improved search engine link placement due to link-counting algorithms (e.g. Google’s PageRank) that search engines use.
So what can we do ? Of course the first thing to do is not to publish the site’s statistics. So for my site FFWorld, I made the access to statistics private but gave the login and pass on the site so real people can see them and Google won’t index them. Thanks to that first recommendation, you rob spammers of the only benefit they have. This is quite enjoyable.
But the fact is referer spam is a so simple technique, which only requires one little HTTP request (without the need to wait for the server response) , that it seems that even sites which don’t publish their statistics are blindly spammed. The nuisance is real for the site’s owner because it gives a bad image of the site’s traffic and referers. Currently techniques to fight referer spam involve URL blacklists, which as this link details, is an unwinnable race. So I’m left with the joy that spammers won’t benefit from spamming my site…