Robot Referrers Removed

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  mgib3 · Member · May 26, 2011 at 5:57 pm

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  I know that the spam/robot referrer problem has been addressed at times and that WP admins have suggested to just not click them.

  I also noticed at some point during the day, the robot referrers are removed but it seems like the “site views” for the day do not remove the robot views.

  Is there anyone WP can remove them?

  Thanks!

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

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · May 26, 2011 at 6:06 pm

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  Referrer Spam is primarily left by bots, but it can also be left by legitimate visitors infect by a virus or using a shady browser add-on or toolbar.

  Since it’s impossible to make that determination, we prefer to stay on the more positive angle of leaving the views there, rather than remove them altogether.

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  mgib3 · Member · May 26, 2011 at 6:14 pm

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  Oh ok. I like the optimism. One question though, when the bot referrer is removed from the referrer stats- is it safe to say that visits from that bot have been stopped?

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · May 26, 2011 at 6:45 pm

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  No, for the very same reason (possible legitimate visitors), we can’t block visits either. We just filter them from the Referrer listings.

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  mgib3 · Member · May 26, 2011 at 7:03 pm

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  Appreciate the help.

  But I guess I’d pose this question: why remove the bot referrer at all from the referrer section? At least if we still have that in our referrer section we can subtract that out (if we feel it is a bot) and have a more accurate representation for who visited that day.

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · May 26, 2011 at 8:52 pm

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  We remove them because most folks don’t like to see them. ;)

  Also, some of the Spam Referrer sites contain viruses, and we don’t want anyone catching one by accident.

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  ludusnaturae · Member · May 26, 2011 at 10:09 pm

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  Thank you for removing spam referrers :)

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  timethief · Member · May 26, 2011 at 10:32 pm

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  Thanks from me too. I don’t want to experience a virus attack on my computer or a malicious download.

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · May 26, 2011 at 10:37 pm

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  You’re welcome!

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  mgib3 · Member · May 26, 2011 at 11:01 pm

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  Appreciate the help and feedback.

  Like the others said, I’d rather have them removed if that helps prevent viruses to all of us. I can live with inflated stats if that’s the only drawback haha.

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  accargill · Member · Jun 1, 2011 at 2:07 am

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  Reddit.com linked to one post on our blog. While it is a nice article, the hits resulting to it are skewing stats. Can we stop the hits or the link? I have contacted Reddit also and am awaiting reply. Totally throwing off our author hits and article hits.

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  timethief · Member · Jun 1, 2011 at 3:04 am

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  @accargill
  Reddit.com is NOT a spam referrer. One of your readers “shared” ie. submitted a link to one of your posts and the result was traffic. Most of us would be happy as could be if that happened to one of our posts.

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  accargill · Member · Jun 1, 2011 at 2:41 pm

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  Since we are a blog with a number of contributors, not just this one, no we are not happy for the “fake” traffic. Lots of much better articles on our sites than this one. Since you can’t block such things, I will have to handle another way. Sheesh!