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Re: What does this do? What does it mean?

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
__/ [ Alric Knebel ] on Monday 22 May 2006 13:31 \__


Roy Schestowitz wrote:


__/ [ Alric Knebel ] on Monday 22 May 2006 09:59 \__



I was looking at the AWSTATS screen for my website, and I followed an
odd link that was listed as something that linked to my site.  I
followed it to this:

www.anonym.to

It was mostly some foreign site, but there was a paragraph in English at
the very top.  I really didn't understand what it meant.  Do any of you
understand what this means?
_______
English version: to make a long story short: anonym.to is a free and
easy way to block the referrer when a visitor clicks a link on your
homepage. It works with every browser as you do only have to add a
http://anonym.to/? in front of every outgoing http:// link. Use it as
you want.
________


Thank you so much in advance.


Hi,

Let  me  begin  by  warning  you  that the  service  of  this  site  seems
questionable  because  your visitors can be redirected  anywhere,  without
your awareness. Before moving on, ensure you can establish trust with the
site in question, as well as depend on its long-term existence (also  see
snipurl.com and tinyurl.com for similar issues).

To clarify, whenever you request a file (e.g. Web page), your Web browser
sends a  request to the site in question. That request is being  recorded
(unless just dumped), along with some extra details passed by the browser.
This  may include the address of the referring site (the referrer),  which
helps  the  Webmaster keep track of _where visitors come from_.  The  site
above  offers  you  some sort of protection. It acts as  a  middleman.  By
endowing  many  links  to that site (which give it high(er) ranks  by  the
way),  you can hide yourself as the origin of visitor clicks. I don't know
why  you would ever want to do this. As I said, having _not_ yet looked at
the  site in question, it rings large bells of alarm. There must be better
and  easier methods for achieving the same thing, although the Web browser
of the visitor may stand in the way.

One  alternative  and  similar  approach  are  scripts  like  go.php  (and
variants),  which  enable  you  to hide the  destination  of  links  (also
external) while relying on your own site and being able to track clicks on
links to external sites. It also can preserve ranks that are important for
search engine status.

Thank you very much for that information. Maybe how I came upon this site would add even more understanding, and further explanation of whatever you think it really means. I have a website, and I look every few days at that stats, as I said, AWSTATS. It's supplied by my webhosting provider. While a lot of it is Greek to me, I look to see what link was followed to MY site; I think your used the term "referred." I have another website I set up for a different theme, but it has a link to THIS site (the one in my signature), and from a previous the address in another webhosting provider, a sort of forwarding address. So I recognize those two as my own. Sometimes I click on the link to follow it back, because sometimes it's a mystery where it's coming from. Among the links when I looked last night was the link above, the one I'm asking about. Somebody had come to my site through THAT site. I clicked on it and followed it back. I have no idea what it really means. I believe the site is German. I have no relationship with that site at all.

I immediately feared I had been vandalized, but I was uncertain.  It
isn't possible to shanghai visitors to a site, is it?  I keep reading
the passage above -- the one I posted, from the site -- over and over,
and it just doesn't get any clearer what it does.


This is known as referrer spam. By following that link from AWStats, you
fulfilled the desires of the spammer, who tried to get your attention or
simply appear in some public statistics pages. You are urged not to follow
unfamiliar links from AWStats because it encourages the offender/spammer to
carry on with the same practice, which adds 'noise' to your stats.

consider yourself lucky. See:

http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2005/10/15/aftermath-attack/

Also see how noisy my referrer stats have become:

http://www.schestowitz.com/temp/referrals-december.jpg

Seek an explanation about referrer spam. It is only one among plenty of ill
things that you will find in Web stats.

Best wishes,

Roy

Thanks a lot. I looked at the stats and I see some sort of drug company were spamming you. I need to look this up, to see how these guys really gain from this. So far, the one we're discussing has been the only referral link that was perplexing to me to the point that I couldn't follow it. It'll be quite a chain in some other legitimate referrals.


These spammers, I don't see how they benefit.



--
Alric Knebel
http://www.ironeyefortress.com/C-SPAN_loon.html
http://www.ironeyefortress.com

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