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Concentrate On Your Readers, Not On The Spammers

We've been exploring the nature of referer spam for over a year now. I've provided various suggestions about the problem - what you should not do, the observation that it does not actually show traffic to your blog, and even why Stats is vulnerable to this abuse.

To the most frequently asked question
What do I do about it?
the answer is generally
Don't click on the links.
And that's just half of the answer, if we think about it.

We've slowly realised that referer spam is probably here to stay - so "Don't click on the links" is similar to "Close your eyes, and you won't see it". Maybe, we should try a better answer.

How about we tell everybody to just get back to work on their blogs?
This will have 2 benefits.
  • You won't have time to click on the links.
  • Your blog will get some real traffic.
In time, with actual traffic from actual readers, you won't see the referer spam. You'll have actual reader activity, in your Stats log. Isn't that really what you want?

Win - Win - Lose (You - Your readers - The spammers).

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Comments

Civic Mentor said…
I wish to thank the busy souls who have managed to suck so much joy out of the blog statistics that used to mean something -- and which helped me persevere in trying to build something that might matter to others.

I know, I know -- increase readership so their mischief can be submerged in the mass. The difficulty in doing this depends on what you're trying to do.

Meanwhile, I would not mind (in the least) adding these miscreants to a "blocking list," no matter how big that list became.

I can see I'm not going to get any help in this -- my complaint apparently means nothing. So, the dance around this daily hassle must continue.

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