Referrers

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  marciajkenyon · Member · Jan 12, 2011 at 11:38 am

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  Can someone give me an insight into what referrers mean on the stats page? I’m concerned because some of these ‘referrers’ have been from sites I would consider undesireable (when I’ve clicked the link, which I now regret..). Has someone linked my blog to these sites and then that generates traffic? I don’t quite follow how it works and I don’t want to be associated with undesireable referrers, can anything be done about it? Thanks.

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

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  writingsprint · Member · Jan 12, 2011 at 1:05 pm

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  They’re spam bots. Here’s a link to another thread that talks about it.

  https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/whats-up-with-all-the-spammy-referrers?replies=27

  In the thread, Mark from WordPress support says:

  Here is the situation.

  Only you see those links, no-one else. They want you to click and go to them so if you don’t they lose.

  Yes it means they crowd out others.

  We will be taking steps to filter them – and the next day please watch the forums for the indignant yelling that we may have blocked a real referrer and they want any filters turned off. I absolutely guarantee that will happen. In fact we will probably be accused of censorship. So what do we do then?

  These spammers make domains, send a bunch of junk then move. So 100 domains reported today may never be used again. If you want to send them that’s fine but when filters are introduced they will act on the current information mainly.

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  auxclass · Member · Jan 12, 2011 at 1:34 pm

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  There are several types or “referrals” – the Spam ones discussed above – then because of they way Global Tags work at WordPress.COM you can have visitors from strange sites on WordPress.COM if one of your tags matched on another blog. Also most any site can link to any other site and there is not much you can do – I could link to your site and there is nothing you could do except ask politely to be removed from a Boating Safety Site –

  Many variations of referrals.

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  marciajkenyon · Member · Jan 12, 2011 at 8:01 pm

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  Thankyou very much for your replies, I think the best approach is to ignore any that seem a bit iffy. At least I understand now.

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  thesecretgirlforever · Member · Jan 23, 2011 at 10:20 pm

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  i had the same question about referrers. i didnt know what they were, but now i do. thank you for the great information!