Referrer Spam – Nothing can be done..
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It seems that WordPress will not be able to stop the referrer spam which really renders the stats useless. I think blocking the domains is just fighting a loosing battle.
This is the reply I had today which I guess is automated;
Hi,
My apologies if you have received this email before.Thank you for reporting the bad referrers.
Your blog is not at risk, there are no security concerns, no-one outside your blog can see those links.
This is a very hard problem to deal with and based on the last 5 years dealing with spam here is what I think is happening:
1. A spammer finds a lax domain registrar or makes a deal with a less than scrupulous one.
2. Spammer buys a large number of sites
3. They then fill those spam sites with ads or possibly malware
4. Spammer then spams thousands of websites.
– so far he will have bought the domains using a program and put all the ads on using a program so the effort involved is tiny.
5. Spammer hopes people follow those links back to his site.
– because his costs so far are small it only takes a few purchases through ads to make money. If the site is serving malware then payment per successful infection is made.
6. Spammer then gives the domains back to the registrar within the accepted time-limit and gets a full refund.
– if you buy a domain through wordpress.com you can cancel within 2 days. A dodgy registrar might allow longer but it’s still a short amount of time. That’s why they move fast.
So it’s all profit.Can we stop it? I’m afraid we can’t simply because it is outside our control.
But we can and do block every domain that gets reported and again thanks for doing so because it helps everyone else too.Please do not send in new reports by replying to this. The fastest way is by creating a new report. Thanks.
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Mark -
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How do I report to WordPress a spam URL that is creating lots of hits on my WordPress blog? Thanks.
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@thecatwho: I answered you on the other thread
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-sites-are-sending-me-trafficshould-i-worry?replies=6 -
Staff have created a filtering system.
They have requested that we do not click the spam refferer links because that is what the spammers want us to do.
They have also requested that we do not post any referrer information into forum threads, but instead that we report all spam refferer links directly to them.Please do not post any information here at all. If you have not reported the links directly to Staff please do that now support@wordpress.com
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Thread closed due to forum policy please use the contact email to report shady spam sites found in your stats
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