Adult referers in web logs

How do they do it?

[anallawalla]

I just saw my first two referer strings from what appear to be porn sites. I don't intend to click on the URLs to find out whether my URL is there, but how is the trick achieved?

- Ash

[Macguru]

>>I don't intend to click on the URLs to find out whether my URL is there,

Then, can you copy paste it?

[korkus2000]

Probably sending out a spider to spam log files. It is quite common.

[mack]

"Probably sending out a spider to spam log files. It is quite common."

Spot on! had this quite a lot letely. They spider sites in hope of finding their way into log file. Some software will provide a link so you can see where your traffic is coming from. Google them may find this link and that is why it is beneficial to them.

Another possible reason could be their exit button may point to your site. At one point I had a few exit links pointing my way and at first I though "great, inbound links" All they did was make it harder for me to rank for my key terms because of the off topic links. Ended up emailing them asking to change the links.

Mack.

[dmorison]

In some cases I don't think it's the actual adult site doing the spamming - I had one that looked like it had an affiliate tracking code on the URL..

[webmasterworld.com...]

...although of course it could just have been the webmaster using his own affiliate tracking system to monitor the ROI of his referrer spamming campaign.... :)

[chiyo]

We get these regularly. First noticed many years ago. I think at the time i came up with a working theory it was people opening up a second browser window to go to your site, or some other quirk, and sometimes the first window url then appears as a referrer in your logs. That's just one working theory. I am sure there are others as those above.

I did check all referers in those days and our link did not appear. Now i never check the obvious po*n ones.

[mack]

I dont bother checking out xxx referals now because it costs me far to much money :)

Seriously I stopped checking because I sometimes found that the page that appeared as the referal is an unlinked page within the site and it is spring loaded with about a dozen cpm pop up ads.

If they markt this page wih log spamming it is probably fairly lucrative for the site involved.

Mack.

[anallawalla]

Macguru:

Then, can you copy paste it?

Sure, but I was wondering how the trick is achieved, e.g. URL in a SE emulator - must try it on my own site sometime.

Chiyo:

I think at the time i came up with a working theory it was people opening up a second browser window to go to your site, or some other quirk, and sometimes the first window url then appears as a referrer in your logs.

This sounds likely. In my example, there were two porn referrers within seconds of each other. Could be an unintended Javascript artifact.

-Ash

[NFFC]

There is a large ad words partner with many expired domains, seeing a few referrals from them, which is worrying.