Google in my 'log spam'

[kapow]

Today I noticed Google in my 'log spam'
ie in my 'request report' I see
[google.com...]
[google.ca...]

This is NOT referrer links in my stats, it is log-spam in my stats.

NOTES:

What is log spam?
Oganisation setup a system to visit every domain (website) and 'request' their own domain (as if it were a page on the site).

What does log spam do?
The result of this is in the logs (and therefore your stats page) in the request report (NOT to be confused with the referrer report) within the stats for the popularity of each of YOUR web pages you see links to the log-spammers pages.

Why do they do it?
- Mainly to get links pointing to their site from stats pages,
- Partly to encourage visits from those viewing stats pages.
Sure, most stats pages are password accessed or have a 'noindex' meta tag, however there are many stats pages that are open or even have some PR.

Why is it bad?
Log spam messes up your stats reports, e.g. you don't have a page called [ebay...]
but your stats report says that page has been viewed (requested) 100 times.

Why are Google doing it?
Yahoo do it, ebay do it and lots of other companies do it, I am amazed however that now even Google do it. I thought google had real respect and value for the internet.

[mrMister]

Who made the log spam request to your server? Are you sure it was a Google IP?

[vabtz]

Did you check the IP's to verify?

I have been getting weird requests from googlebot lately too. Mine look the url of the page plus the url encoded keywords adsense displays appeneded on to it.

so like this [exampledomain.com...]

[kapow]

Are you sure it was a Google IP?

I don't know the IP. However I doubt if the 'bots' used to create log-spam are on that companies IP.

Sure, I can accept that someone else 'could' do it, but there is little incentive for anyone else to 'promote' Google in this way.

Does anyone else get log-spam from Google? (perhaps someone who knows more about IPs etc than me).

[jomaxx]

kapow, do you seriously believe Google are log spamming? Think it through. They INVENTED PageRank; it seems somewhat unlikely that they're spamming in order to build their own PR. They're probably the busiest website on the planet; don't you think they're past the point where they need to beg for visitors?

[kwngian]

I am also getting increasing amount of log spammers using google as referring url.

Perhaps they were thinking if they do so, google will not be able to penalise (at least not via automated mode) log spammers' urls found in those stat reports available for public to view.

Other than that, there is very little incentive for doing so.

[vincevincevince]

Bill: How can we automatically figure out the server admin's email address and server software?

Bob: Well, if you request a domain from a server which isn't on that server then they tend to give you all the details for free.

Bill: Okay, we'll ask for Google.com on every IP in the block.

[Luddite]

>>kapow, do you seriously believe Google are log spamming?.... .....in order to build their own PR.

Just for the hell of it, I checked - The almighty "G" has pagerank of 10 in all centres. Clearly their log-spamming campaign has paid off ;-)

[py9jmas]

What you describe is also a valid way of checking for open proxies. If you request GET http_://www.google.com/ HTTP/1.0, and get back Google, you've found an open proxy. This is a far more likely explanation IMHO.

[Sweet Cognac]

Interesting.

Several months ago I added a php "Add your own Link" script to my site, and immediately after I uploaded it, this was submitted:

Site Name: a
Email: [e-mail]
Title: Google
URL: h ttp://www.google.com

URL where my website can be found: h ttp://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mysite.com%2FGoogle search engine

I then recieved an email verifying it was submitted, and then 2 hrs later the submission disappeared from the page.
(http's separated to prevent links)

[webmasterworld.com...]

[kapow]

Re. Google PageRank - other search engines use various kinds of link-pop too, so I assumed Google were doing what what other log spammers do. However, as I said earlier I find it hard to believe Google would do this, but I have this stuff recently appearing in my request-report.

What you describe is also a valid way of checking for open proxies. If you request GET http_://www.google.com/ HTTP/1.0, and get back Google, you've found an open proxy. This is a far more likely explanation IMHO.

That seems more likely.

Its not a referrer thing its a request thing i.e. my logs have always shown requests (not referrals) for ebay, yahoo and a bunch of other sites. I have always understood this to be 'log spam' where the spammers want links to their site to show up in your 'request report'. However perhaps this proxy thing sheds more light on the matter.

There are probably lots of people here who understand this insideout. Can anyone explain a bit more about this?

[activeco]

Deleted, wrong time, sorry.