Off-target referrers
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I post a lot of replies to online news articles and opinion pieces, where I include links to my blog, so it’s not unusual to see referrers like “denverpost.com”, etc.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of third-party referrers that have no relationship whatsoever to any news outlet, such as “bigdealreviews.info”, “cheaptravelstyle.com/”, and even “drugrehab.com”.
I can understand the occasional oddball referrer from time to time, but for these have been coming in daily for the past week. If I follow the link back there is naturally no reference to my posts.
Could this be some sort of spam or a sign that someone is phishing or hacking or whatever?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Am I a wordpress.com blogger? No, I never heard of the place, which is why I chose to ask a simple question here. Didn’t have to log in or anything. Just showed up and typed away.
Thanks, Sarah, I’m glad it’s not just me.
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@rkeefe57
You probably don’t know that Only Staff can see the URL you entered into the ‘post question’ form. Staff monitor forum threads on this peer support forum where Volunteers ie. your fellow bloggers (who cannot see what you typed into the ‘post question’ form) answer the questions.Every day we find ourselves in the position of either asking for the URL so we can be sure we are providing the correct answer to the question posed, or typing out an explanation that does not apply because it turns out that the blogger who has posted the question is actually a wordpress.org blogger working on different software than the wpMU software used here. You probably also don’t know that some days between 25 – 33% of the forum questions posted to the wordpress.com forum are actually being posted by wordpress.org bloggers.
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Trackback spam is common. It’s a ping from a spam blog (splog) to your blog indicating that there has been an update. However, since the ping is coming from a spam blog, the ping is phony.
In her article How to spot a splog Lorelle says:
“Splogs, spamming blogs, are often little more than link farms, a bunch of text stuffed with links to whatever they are selling. The easiest way to identify a splog is when nothing adds up nor matches. The content doesn’t match the links. The content doesn’t match the blog title or post title. There is a signature or name in the article that doesn’t match with the name of the post author or submitter.” http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/09/23/how-to-spot-a-splog/
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No, I admit I don’t know anything about blogging, but I also believed my question was generic enough and even if I listed my link, (http://rkeefe57.wordpress.com/), I don’t see how anyone BUT wordpress staff would see what I was talking about in the first place.
Maybe I misread your initial post, but as I read it it came across as patronizing and insulting. If you want my link just ask
Again, how many non-members have access to this forum?
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These days I’m witnessing an increasing number bloggers who are posting trackback spam. They also tend to post automatatically generated spam comments as well. I suppose they are desperate for trackbacks and comments, and have not yet learned how to discern between legitimate comments and trackbacks and those that aren’t.
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Every person who has a wordpress.org install and who uses the wordpress stats program on their free install from wordpress.org must have an account at wordpress.com.
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Thank you for the post on trackback spam. It answers my question precisely. I only asked because I have been blogging since last September and this is my first encounter with it.
Much appreciated.
Richard
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In addition every [person who has a wordpress.org install and who uses Akismet spam filter must also have a wordpress.com account.
If you have a blog hosted elsewhere using the WordPress.org software, you can use the API key to activate certain plugins, including Akismet and WordPress.com Stats.
You must have an account registered here at WordPress.com to receive an API key. If you have installed the WordPress.org software on a privately-hosted server, this does NOT give you an API key. http://en.support.wordpress.com/api-keys/
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Every person who does not have a wordpress.com blog but who is a user of a wordpress.com blog (http://en.support.wordpress.com/adding-users/) must also gave a wordpress.com account.
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Not sure if I’ll get a reply here since this is marked “resolved” but I hate to start the same topic over again. I’m getting these off-target referrers lately too.
I understand about trackback spam pings, and just delete them. Is there any cause for concern, or any action I need to take, about the off-target referrer type of spam?
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