I was looking through our referrers list here at Peiratikos just now, and I discovered three rather odd referers. I won’t link to two of them, because they’re real sites. I will give you the third URL: http://paris-hilton-sextape.blogspot.com/. That’s not a real URL—there is no Paris Hilton Sex Tape blog. So that’s clearly not a legit referral, but the other two are highly questionable: one is an Internet service provider and the other appears to be a Belgian company. I.e., not web sites that are likely to link to us.
Folks, the newest innovation in spam has arrived, and it is referral spam. Apparently a lot of bloggers are getting hit with referral spam for John Kerry’s blog, whihc is pretty pathetic—Paris Hilton spam is to be expected, but when Presidential campaigns start spamming… or maybe it’s some Republican script kiddie trying to turn tech-savvy people against Kerry.
At any rate… come on, referral spam? It’s wasted on our site, since Rose and I are the only ones who can look at our referrers list. It would certainly cause us a lot of difficulty if we start getting hit hard by this method—not least because of all the wasted bandwidth used up by serving bogus referrals—but nobody will actually see the spam ads except us, and it’s not like we’re going to buy something from a company that 1) spams us and 2) wastes our precious and expensive bandwidth. So whoever decided to spam our referral list made a poor marketing choice. For people who list their referrers on their web sites (I know several bloggers do), this could create a larger public annoyance.
But still, referral spam?
Matt says:
I have also noticed these same referrals in my logs. However, after doing some snooping around the web, I have found that many of the Paris Hilton blogspot referrals do refer back to a real blog. The blog is dedicated to Paris Hilton sex tape news. It’s crap, but luckily the referrals are going to a page I no longer have.
— 4 March 2004 at 1:37 pm (Permalink)
Steven says:
Ah, oddly enough, the Paris Hilton URL does indeed now point to a real site. Maybe blogspot was down when I checked yesterday.
— 4 March 2004 at 1:41 pm (Permalink)
Twilight Invasion says:
Referral Spam
As bloggers are wont to be, I am addicted to checking my referral logs a couple of times a week. I had been noticing referrals from both John Kerry’s blog and some Paris Hilton sex tape blog…
— 4 March 2004 at 1:43 pm (Permalink)
Jim Henley says:
I’ve been blogging for two and a half years and I’m pretty sure referral spam has been around for two of them. But at least one, for sure.
— 7 March 2004 at 6:41 am (Permalink)
Steven says:
Has it? I’ve only recently begun seeing references to it elsewhere on the Web. It must be gaining in popularity.
— 7 March 2004 at 1:23 pm (Permalink)