Spam referrers ruining stats

  • Unknown's avatar
    kkgnoise · Member ·

    My blog has been getting 100s of hits from foreign spam referrers the past few days. (These are spam referrers, not spam commenters. I have no problem w/spam commenters at all because Akismet keeps them away.) I’ve read WP’s Marking Spam Referrers page and tried flagging the sites as spam in my referrals list, but this hasn’t stopped the hits, only made me unable to see them. I also tried some of the code listed on other sites in my Comment Blacklist and it doesn’t seem to be keeping them away – though I’m somewhat new to this so it’s entirely possible that I messed up something in the code. I need to get rid of these guys ASAP, because my stats are basically useless at this point and I can tell from my other referrals that I’m essentially invisible in search engines right now. So in summary:

    1) What would be the best way to go about blocking these guys? Just a reminder, they’ve already been flagged as spammers, and I’ve read the “Marking Spam Referrers” page. Neither helped.
    2) How can I tell if my blog has been hacked or otherwise compromised? (Note: all the spam sites appear to linking to my homepage, not any individual posts.) And what can I do about it if it has been hacked?

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

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Marking spam referrers as spam referrers simply removes the reporting from your stats. It does not block them.

    To prevent hacking make sure you follow all security protocols. See here http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2014/03/02/how-to-keep-your-blog-safe/

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    re: comment blacklisting
    That is for comments only. Not for referrers. The vast and overwhelming majority of all so-called information on the internet is spam. Over 80% of all so-called comments submitted to .wordpress.com blogs every day are spam.

    I also tried some of the code listed on other sites in my Comment Blacklist and it doesn’t seem to be keeping them away – though I’m somewhat new to this so it’s entirely possible that I messed up something in the code.

    There is no code required in the comment blacklist. For trolls, you can “blacklist” them at Settings > Discussion toward the bottom of that page. Enter their email address, their username, and if they included it, their website URL. That will automatically send them to moderation so that their comments do not appear on the blog. Do note though that if they are determined, they can use a different email address or username to get around that.

    Also, do not put their IP address in the blacklist. IP addresses are no longer unique, and you might end up blocking legitimate visitors. Also, all they would have to do is go to a wi-fi hot spot, or connect via a different ISP and they could get around that.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/#comment-blacklist

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    I did a brief check of scarletlettersblog.wordpress.com for internal duplicate content and here are the results:
    http://copyscape.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fscarletlettersblog.wordpress.com%2F

  • Unknown's avatar
    kkgnoise · Member ·

    Thanks, timethief. I suspected the Comments Blacklist was not the right place to try blocking the referrers. Other sites were saying to use code like the following to block specific URLs.

    # set the spam_ref variable
    SetEnvIfNoCase Referer “^http://(www.)?some-spammer.com” spam_ref=1

    SetEnvIfNoCase Referer “^http://(www.)?other-spammer.com” spam_ref=1

    SetEnvIfNoCase Referer “^casino-poker” spam_ref=1

    # block all referres that have spam_ref set
    <FilesMatch “(.*)”>
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from all
    Deny from env=spam_ref
    </FilesMatch>

    This is from http://www.besthostratings.com/articles/block-referrer-spam.html

    Is there a way to do this on WP, and if so, where? Since clearly the Comments Blacklist is the wrong place, and I have no spam commenters, just referrers.

    Thanks for checking the blog for duplicate content, but if you’ll pardon my ignorance, what exactly do the results mean? This is my first foray into dealing with this kind of thing.

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    The bottom line here is bloggers cannot block spam referrers on WordPress.COM hosted blogs.

  • Unknown's avatar
    kkgnoise · Member ·

    Okay, thanks. I guess that makes it pretty simple.

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Yes it does, doesn’t it?

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