__/ [ 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
--
Roy S. Schestowitz
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