Referrer logs are being spammed

My awstats logs are full of this crap:

- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/poker-games.html	171	171
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/free-poker.html	95	95
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/empire-poker.html	85	85
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/poker-rules.html	84	84
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/poker.html	83	83
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/party-poker.html	82	82
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/texas-hold-em.html	81	81
- http://www.progressiveupdate.net/pacific-poker.html	79	79

Code (markup):

How do I tell if my logs are open to the public and this is being counted as links out from my site? What can I do to prevent this kind of crap?

Thank you for your help.

 

View you stats pages through a proxy of some kind (e.g. http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html). If they can see it, anybody else can.

J.D.

 

The fact that his website isn't on Google doesn't mean that his logs are not publicly accessible. Besides, he's running AWStats and this package has the following statement that prevents legitimate robots from indexing stats pages:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" />

There's no such value as nofollow for rel:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#type-links

J.D.

 

Referrer spamming is actually an old issue. I'm not sure if the SE's actually ever totally ignored those links, but they are certainly aware of the method. Doesn't stop it still being employed, of course - I see plenty of crap from gambling, porn, and pharma in my logs.

 

No it doesn't. Read the page you quoted. According to W3C, it is valid to define your own link types, but it has to be accompanied by a reference to the appropriate profile:

This makes nofollow specified for an individual link a Google-specific extension. If other search engines pick up on this initiative, then it will be a good tool to fight blog comment spam.

Note that in case of the referrer spam, all stats pages should be accompanied by the noindex/nofollow meta tag to prevent engines from even indexing these pages (indexing these pages is a good source of info for hackers).

J.D.

 

J.D., Last I knew, Google, Yahoo & MSN are on board with support for rel='nofollow'. Teoma/Ask Jeeves is not.

 

Good to know. Thanks!

 

heres a nifty bit of code, put it in your .htaccess (requires apache)

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?pharmacy(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?phentermine(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?incestporn(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?rapeporn(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?diet-therapy(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?blonde-mature(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?phntrmn(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?car-insurance(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?sex(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?erotic(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?texas-hold(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?weight-loss(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?free-ringtone(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?airline-ticket(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?poker(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?ringtone-download(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?progressiveupdate(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?cialis(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?merchant-account(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?cialis5(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?cialisonline(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?phentermine2(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?phentermine45(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?scalaroi(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?cruelnitio(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?health-insurance(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?tramadol(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?vicodin(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?hydrocodone(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?permento(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?airline(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?cardinalo(-|.).*$ [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?auto-insurance(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?free-asian(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?nylon-pics(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?jamie-lee-curtis(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?homesexsearch(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?spyware-removal(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?bigsitecity(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?.*(-|.)?djsdesigns(-|.).*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?astellsci.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?twentyfirstcc.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?lassaro.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?setiatpalm.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?iberbrasconsultoia.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?ybsearch.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?noamkts.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?setiromania.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?free-spyware-removal-download.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?download-free-ringtone.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?racepointfunding.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?warrenzanes.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?fresnay.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?adipex.epinoy.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?bigsitecity.*$ 

RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

PHP:

 

The only thing is huge .htaccess files can slow down your server.

 

can't you put the awstats behind user/password?