Odd access log entrys

[Pollos]

Hi over the last couple of days I've had a batch of entries in my access log example as follows



GET [ad.e-viral.com...] HTTP/1.0" 200 4460 "http://www.carbusses.com/article/Car-News---Audi-R8-Family-Expanding.html" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Mac_PowerPC; Alexa Toolbar)"

GET [ad.e-viral.com...] HTTP/1.0" 302 - "http://ad.e-viral.com/st?ad_type=iframe&ad_size=300x250&section=1744579" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; AOL 6.0; Windows 95)"

GET [ad.scanmedios.com...] HTTP/1.0" 502 600 "http://www.gamesporting.com/34799-The-Amazing-Card-Keeper.html" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98; Alexa Toolbar)

Anyone what they are/ why they are there? One thing I noticed is that the users are using old out of date OS's

Any comments much appreciated

[tangor]

Ad network... see robtex for more information: [robtex.com...]

[Pollos]

I gathered that it was an ad network but why are showing in the access logs. The only ad network I have is Google, are they connected?

[Jonesy]

"Referral spam" Google it.

HNY
Jonesy

[Pollos]

Thanks for this. I had heard of "Referral spam" but now I know what it is and why they bother. Won't do them any good with me as my logs and referrers are not made public.

[lucy24]

my logs and referrers are not made public

Better look it up to be safe. g### has a nasty habit of indexing everything it finds, notably including logs and robots.txt. Search for some really obscure UA and the hits will be nothing but access log pages as far as the eye can see.