Is my site used for spamming?

[jrothra]

I've noticed AWStats reporting the following sites as sending me traffic (anywhere from 2-4 links each). The domains make me wonder if my site is being used by hackers for spam or if I'm just getting a lot of spam traffic (keeping Akismet busy).

http://fioricet--ok.blogspot.com
http://vioxx44yg.blogspot.com
http://cialis--mk.blogspot.com
http://xanaxsfe.blogspot.com
http://buy-1-phentermine-1.blogspot.com
http://payday--loan-1.blogspot.com
http://buy51rz9viagra.blogspot.com
http://xanaxqd4j.blogspot.com
http://airline-tickets--new.blogspot.com
http://cialisk-30.blogspot.com
http://viagra-for-woman--1.blogspot.com
http://no-fax-payday--loan.blogspot.com
http://vicodin6--1j.blogspot.com
http://airlinem1-vtickets.blogspot.com
http://vioxx-9j.blogspot.com

[rmccarley]

That's referrer spamming. They may not be hitting your site at all, just pinging it in hopes you will track the links back and click their ads/buy their products.

[jrothra]

Kinda like mailing you junk mail hoping you see it and purchase their stuff. Right?

[mvandemar]

Originally Posted by jrothra

Kinda like mailing you junk mail hoping you see it and purchase their stuff. Right?

No, more kind of like mailing you junk mail and hoping you will post your junk mail to the public and the search engines will see it.

Some stats programs do, or at least used to, be installed by default so thing like referrers showed publicly under a directory. I forget offhand the search you can use to find public stats, I think Jadi posted a piece on it not too long ago and it got dugg, I can look it up if you like. The links in those stats reports are not nofollowed, so they actually count as links.

It's a lame attempt at spamming, especially since such a small percentage of people actually use public traffic stats and the spammers don't even bother to check to see if who they are spamming fall under that minority. Basically is a nuisance, probably only used by ignorant script kiddies who bought some kiddie black hat spamming package. Screws up your stats, since there is only so much data that your stats will show, with no benefit at all to the spammer.

-Michael

[toddieg]

rotha,

basically a lot of people have their webstats programs INDEXED by google.

on top of that, a lot of people's webstats programs actually HOTLINK the referers. (why, i have no clue)

basically it gives the spammer a live link on an indexed google page (many times a link has some authority & page rank)

...

it probably doesn't help your domain's trust in google linking out to those 'bad' sites, so it's a good idea to double check and make sure your stats pages AREN'T indexed. (bad news is, if you're already on a list, it probably won't stop)


here's an example of quite a few webalizer programs that are indexed.

here's what one of the stats pages (with hyperlinks) looks like. (notice the spam urls)

here are some good .edus that are vulnerable.

[jrothra]

To get to my AWStats, webalyzer, etc., you must log in through cPanel. When you do, it changes the URL to the server info, something like (linux53.cqsomething.com:5555/some-strong-query-type-stuff-not-a-static-page...)

So, I'm sure such files are not indexed. However, I did search under my domain and found no stats files indexed in G. G craws my site more than others, so I'm sure if they don't have it indexed, other's don't either.

[mvandemar]

John, it doesn't look like yours are being displayed publicly, but you might want to look at your 404 page, it looks like there is PHP code that isn't being executed but is being displayed as text, could be a security issue:

http://www.jrothraministries.com/webalizer/

-Michael

[mvandemar]

Ok, SO... speaking of referrer spam, I just figured out that for the past 3 days I've been being bombarded by a referrer spam bot that not only was putting a bunch of useless crap in my logs for no reason whatsoever (my stats aren't public either), but they were also downloading my AdSense scripts, causing a spike in AdSense reporting, which could have caused me all kinds of problems.

What kind of jackass is that ignorant? I mean, ok, too stupid to figure out which sites have public stats, fine... but what possible benefit is there to putting someones AdSense account at risk?

-Michael

[rmccarley]

Originally Posted by mvandemar

What kind of jackass is that ignorant? I mean, ok, too stupid to figure out which sites have public stats, fine... but what possible benefit is there to putting someones AdSense account at risk?

Competition? You have been aggravating some high-end SEOs lately...

[gabs]

Originally Posted by mvandemar

but what possible benefit is there to putting someones AdSense account at risk?

-Michael

Shouldn't be at any risk but can effect the price google will pay for a click imho..

Last week on my GF's adsense a/c she had 3 clicks not counted and since then smart pricing has come into play..

Another example is a new blog I started I bought 500 stumbles from SU direct which return a total of 10 impression on that channel...