How to block a website from unwanted referrals?

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  creasedandunderlined · Member · Dec 30, 2014 at 6:08 am

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  There is a website called buttons-for-website.com which keeps showing up as a referrer to my site. I went to the site to see if I could figure out from what context these keep coming from, but no dice – can’t even find where specifically it links to me. I don’t understand why referring to my site would be relevant. They seem to be a weird search site but searches don’t result in anything but a small group of “sponsored links.” The menu choices on the home page are “clip art, icons, fonts, backgrounds, stock photos,” etc., so it makes me nervous they are directing to my site to rip pictures or something…

  I know I can mark them as spam so it won’t show in my stats, but what I would really like is for the site to stop referring to my site altogether. Or at least to figure out from where on the site the referral is coming. I’m a timid online person, care very little about traffic quantity & much more about traffic quality – I’d rather have zero visits & views than a gazillion robot ones. All that to say, it makes me uncomfortable.

  I searched the forum & there really weren’t any good answers or solutions for this, just seemed to be “it’s spam, not much to do about it” but thought I’d at least throw the question out at you again, maybe there are new answers, or you know something about this particular website.

  Thanks.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  alexjgustafson · Member · Dec 30, 2014 at 5:10 pm

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  Howdy!

  We’re definitely aware of that site in particular. However, it is true that there’s not much to be done about the issue other than marking the referrer as spam.

  so it makes me nervous they are directing to my site to rip pictures or something…

  They’re actually directing WordPress.com users’ sites hoping the users will visit their site. You, as the webmaster, are their target in referrer spam schemes.

  Your site and readers aren’t in any danger with this, it’s just particularly annoying for stats purposes. Marking them as spam is the best, and pretty much only, thing to do.

  Sorry I don’t have more information to offer. Your heart’s in the right place! We’d all stand to benefit if spammers would stop being spammers and we could get on with managing real content. :)

  -Alex G.