The latest trick spammers have is setting up fake blogs, usually with the design copied from another site. Though these sites look harmless, all links direct you to pr0n sites. To get visitors to their 'webblogs', they use a trick known as referer spam. They request pages from other sites, pretending to come from a link on their weblog.
Since many sites display the referers on one of their pages ---home page or statistics page---, the spammer effectively creates links to his site this way. And the more links to your site you have, the higher you get in Google's search results, which results automatically in more visitors!!! You can read more about all this at idly.org .
Even though I do not display my referers ---and Google does not spider my statistics---, I still don't want these spammers to use my site. So I blocked them based on the referer field by adding the following code to my .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} a-b-l-o-g\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} akksess\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} bongohome\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} busty2\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} gamling\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} gdough\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} herbalecstasypills\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} jennifersblog\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} kwlablog\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} malixya\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} mikesplace\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} mp3int\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} onlinedatingchat\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} saulem\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} teoras\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} websearchus\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} worldnewslog\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} wr18\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^.* - [F,L]
If you feel that I have added your site to this list by error, just let me know, and I will review my list.
; "Twitter conversation")
; "Movable Type")
; "CeBIT")
; "ClamWin updating")
; "Google Notebook - New!")
; "Events report by file type")
; "Google Analytics")
; "Jesus at Christmas")
; "from e-mail to Enterprise Social Software")
; "Eleven")
This is a rare type of spam and not too effective now, as Google now gives more emphasis to themes. But, anyways, good info.
excellent info. thanks! i've been looking for the specifics of applying this method for a while. it definitely beats trying to block every single IP address.
oh, and i found this by searching for "mp3int referrer spam". a funny side effect of this method is that searching for "mp3int.com referrer spam" also yields your site but as "mp3int.com" is in the referrer search string, clicking the link yields a "Forbidden:
You don't have permission to access..." page.