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Referer Spam Does Not Represent Real Traffic

We've been discussing referer spam for many years.

Every week, besides many people who wonder
Why doesn't Google put an end to this, for good?
there are occasionally some folks who wonder
But is this all bad? Doesn't this help us in our overall Blogger statistics as far as traffic counts go? If so, it's not all bad - for those of us with less than ginormous followings.
And both attitudes reflect people who just don't understand what it is.

We've already discussed, repeatedly, why Google can't just put a end to it, unilaterally.

The latter musing, considering that it may possibly be beneficial to any Blogger blogs, is no more valid than the former. Referer spam simply cannot be blocked, because it is not different from legitimate traffic.

Stats logs entries, from referer spam, do not reflect people viewing the blog.

The numbers reflected in our Stats logs do not represent any actual traffic against our blogs, or any websites with links to our blogs. The only person who benefits from referer spam is the owner of the advertised (fake referer URL) sites - and that happens only when we click on the links in the Stats display.

Only Stats, which builds its pageview counts and graphs using the Blogger server activity logs, is subject to referer spam. All third party visitor logs and meters, which depend upon snippets or widgets added to the blog template, are not subject to this problem.

Don't click on the links - and use a third party visitor log for verification.

So, besides my facetious advice that you simply
Don't click on the links.
comes equally facetious advice that you
Get a third party visitor log / meter, for accurate and comprehensive pageview counts.

Comments

Emily Ex said…
Thank you for clarifying this. I never clicked on the links for fear of this, but now my suspicions are confirmed. Cheers.
Kashyap Joshi said…
Thank you for Informing.
But Please help me. My blogs stats is highly increasing. How to stop those fake backlinks. I don't know but i got a backlink from an iphone5 related website and more other sites. Please tell me how to stop them? and how to stop my blog fake visitors stats increasing? Please tell me what to do i hope you will help me and other bloggers who are facing the same problem.
Thank you.
And sorry for my bad english.
Lady Esther said…
So what is the point of the sites people in Russia doing this? What do they gain by spamming us?
Nitecruzr said…
Esther,

The name of the game is inclicks. You click, and you are now an eye, and you generate ad income for the spamvertised website.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/07/referer-spam-is-annoying-and-its.html
S Golis said…
Thank you for the information I have a lot of referrer spam showing up in my traffic stats, with huge traffic spikes.

I clicked on the link and found it to be redirects to porn websites and I was applaud. The last thing I wanted was to somehow to be linked to that website.
Anael said…
I recently made my blog and I'm getting an insane amount of referer spam that completely mess up my blogger stats. I know the only way for them to stop is stop clicking on them which I've done but it just kills me to even look at my stats anymore. So, my question is if I download a third party stats application such as Sitemeter if it will stop the referer spam from appearing and I will see true site visit statistics? Sorry for the long post.

Thank you!
I wish I would have read this 20 minutes earlier. I clicked on the referrers link out of curiosity, r-e-f-e-r-e-r(dot)com, which turns out to be an adult site. I immediately got referred by another site vampirestat(dot)com, which I didn't click on btw, and the stats are growing as we speak. YUK! I wish there was a way to block these. I'll just ignore them and hope they go away soon. With kind regards, Harv Whitman
Nina said…
If I just knew this earlier ;s I luckily have a viewcounter on my website ;). It doesn't count the vampirestat etc...
Unknown said…
Is there any code to add blogger html so as to prevent russian website?

http://www.capturehisheartreviews.org
Nitecruzr said…
Ciara,

No, there is not any way to add code to your blog, to prevent referer spam. By the time your blog is accessed, the referer spam has already been installed on the server.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/04/referer-spam-cannot-be-blocked.html
buzz said…
I have searched every were since I noticed a increase in this spam . Annoying that nothing can't be done ?? Will blocking robots help ?
Thanks for the empowerment and I'm glad I read this post because I've been foolishly clicking on those questionable links.

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