A new type of SPAM, I thought I had seen it all !!

I was doing some work with some website logs, looking at keyword searches in the referring url etc.

I noticed some strange referring url, it basically looked like a links for a normal webpage. Obviously, I wanted to see the site that was linking to us, so I visit the site.

PORN, VIAGRA, etc. etc.

After looking deeper, there are hundreds of different log entries and tons of sites. Obviously someone is spoofing the referring url, and just getting these sites into the logs. Then some webmaster is looking at his referring url list and does just what I did....

Hmmm... what is this site, and BANG you are at some crazy website that would never have actually linked to you.

What next...

that's actually interesting.

a free way to get backlinks, too, since it's not very rare for someone's stats to show up in the SERPs.

I've seen that before...

There are a few out there who have scripts running "10 most recent referring domains" to help send some traffic back to those people to say thank you.

So a bunch of porn sites and various other idiots will basically have automated scripts that periodically troll these sites, and leave a fake URL as the referrer, just so that the link shows up on those sites listing recent referrers.

It's just another pathetic method the idiots use to try and get more exposure. I've been seeing this one for a coupla years.

Not to get to far off the subject, but I am really tired of spammers, espeically in the porn industry. I have to send out almost a dozen copyright infringement emails to porn sites because they use one of my client's names, Jasco, in there titles, headings, and keywords just to get exposure. Ill have to look into our logs to check this out though.

Thanks vision

What is the result when you send such a letter, I would think it falls on deaf ears. Porn sites are the worst, they do no seem to care about anything. Do you ever have success in getting them to remove offending content?

I actually get about 90% of them to remove it. It takes about 30min for each letter. I send the proper Trademark information along with a digitalID. I tell them our lawyers will be in contact with them if it is not removed within a certain amount of time. I do not just send it to the owner of the site, but also the isp and whoever else has control of the site.

The problem is that a week later 5 more pop up in the serps.

thats accually an old trick ive seen before it never works your targeting webmasters people that hate spam and know what it is in a second. will they never learn

It is an old trick - I remember reading something about this nearly three years ago!