awstats referrer riddle

2 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
  • |
Are there any awstats experts here?
I'm looking at the referrer section of my awstats, and I see several pages where people came to my site from and the pages make sense. That is, I can click through to the page, and there is a link to a page on my website.
But I'm also noticing the homepages of a few of my "competitors" websites. When I click through and arrive at their homepage, my link is not on it (I would be amazed if it was).
So how could that be a referrer if there is no link to my site on it?
Is this some kind of bug, and does anyone know what it means? :confused:
Thanks.
#awstats #referrer #riddle
  • Profile picture of the author KirkMcD
    Refers are easily faked.
    Why would you do this?
    Because some websites leave there statistics open and they get indexed by the search engines, which gives the referer a backlink.

    Look up "referer spam" for more info.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4341405].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author SuperToad
      Kirk,
      Thanks. I looked up "refer spam" and learned a lot.
      I looked through my results again and see several sites that stand out as being sleezy, and I think they may be referrer spam.
      But I see several competitor homepages, and it's hard to believe they are all doing this. Could there be any other explanation?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4341744].message }}

Trending Topics