Can IE block the referring URL?

[Jon_King]

Is the a way to set up IE to not pass the referring URL? I am getting a great deal of no referrer traffic and IE is the browser 98% of the time. Any thoughts?

[DrDoc]

Maybe it's type-in? Or maybe copy'n'paste?
I don't think IE itself can block the referrer, but I know that firewalls (and proxies) can.

[isitreal]

I set up malicious spider traps on several sites and almost all of the trapped spiders use the msie useragent string, and almost none have a referrer.

[john_k]

Most likely, you are seeing the effects of some type of privacy protection software. Norton's Internet Security, and most other privacy protection software has an option to remove this header. I'm not sure, but I think Norton has it removed by default.

more background:
The referrer information comes from a header sent by the browser. If the browser doesn't send it (or if Norton filters it out) then the information isn't available at the server.

[Jon_King]

I would assume the more people that have security/privacy software the less meaningful the server logs will be for tracking.

In some of our logs the no referrer can be as high as 30% - makes for some pretty unreliable tracking data, which is really what prompted this thread.

[ogletree]

How is this a privacy issue. Some people are just way to paranoid. Most people really would not care if that was sent. Some nut at Norton has decided to mess things up for no reason.

[john_k]

How is this a privacy issue. Some people are just way to paranoid. Most people really would not care if that was sent. Some nut at Norton has decided to mess things up for no reason.

I agree 100%.

[photon]

Stupid question: is a referrer passed only if the destination web site is reached by clicking a link on the referring web site? And can I assume that if I have a site open in my browser, and type another site into the address bar, that a referrer is not passed?

[tedster]

In an older thread, we discussed many possible reasons for "no referrer". Especially note Brett's list in message #20

[webmasterworld.com...]

There is also a situation in IE with windows that were spawned by javascript - they also tend not to send referrers. And if you inspect your logs to look at the refering URLs that ARE sent, you will see many oddities - wrong referers sent that could not possibly have been links to your site, referrals from one page to another when there has never been such a link, etc.

So photon, you honestly cannot make that assumption with 100% certainty. URLs can seem to get "stuck" and sent out willy nilly, even when no referral actually happened. The referrer header is a very buggy area in IE and other older browsers.

[edited by: tedster at 8:59 pm (utc) on June 23, 2004]

[digitalv]

Programs like Norton Internet Security and McAfee something or other can be configured to block the HTTP_REFERER - some of your traffic may be from those people, but most of it is probably spiders disguising themselves as MSIE as suggested.

[Jon_King]

Thanks tedster, that post by Brett pretty much sums it up, there are many reasons for misinformation in the logs.

[photon]

Thanks tedster--that's a great post.

Back to the original post--Opera users could have their IDs set as MSIE and have the referrer option turned off. Not that those will be a large percentage of what you're seeing, of course.