Log file spam

[James]

Going through my analytics reports, specifically the list of referring sites. I always visit the referring site to see where they have put the link to me.

I am finding a number of sites that have supposedly referred visitors to me, but when I have a look there is no link to be seen!

Now, I reckon this is "log file spam" where a bot has visited my site with fake HTTP info making it look like a referral. So by me visiting the "referring site" the spammer (or more likely blackhat SEO) has got what they wanted .. a unique visit to the site that they can claim as being traffic they have generated.

I am thinking of contacting such websites to ask if they are happy paying someone for such underhand techniques.

[David]

I have also noticed this but I never considered the black hat SEO angle - good point. It's a bit of a long-shot though - I don't know what percentage of website owners study their referrals stats but I reckon it's relatively low (gut feeling). Is this a known phenomenon?

[James]

I found this article:
http://www.frozenblues.com/capabilities/hosting/blocking-referrer-spam

There are some black-hat SEOs out there that "guarantee x traffic per month" ... I bet this is one of their methods.

[David]

Yikes! there's even a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referer_spam) on referrer spam - OK, need to know how to stop it...