Unknown Referer in Stats

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  tbeckerphotos · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 8:55 pm

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  I have a stranger referrer that showed up in my stats late last night Phoenix time. It’s coming from YouTube and I have no idea why it was directed to my blog site. I’m wondering if it is some sort of phishing or virus that somehow got attached to my blog.

  What should I do?

  Thank you!

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

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  irisoniris · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 9:23 pm

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  I believe many of us get these bogus/spammy referrers every so often (I do).

  This is a response from (someone I believe to be) a WP volunteer in a similar thread:

  In the future, please contact us via http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/ and file a private request (if the option appears) to report spammy referres, to avoid giving the spammers more publicity.

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  raincoaster · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 9:26 pm

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  Well, what IS it?

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  irisoniris · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 9:31 pm

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  @raincoaster, if you are talking to me, I don’t know because I’m not a techy person. I’m also not a WP volunteer (I’m just here in the forums researching an issue I’m crrently having), but from what I’ve read by doing a forum search on “fake referrers” back in 2010-2011, is that some sites run certain scripts to make us look like someone linked to our site, making us curious and click the supposed referrer link on our stats page, giving them traffic.

  The best way is for us to report those bogus sites (don’t click on them!) so WP can remove them from our referre list and other people’s lists as well, thus making the tactic for collecting traffic and spamming us, ineffective.

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  tbeckerphotos · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 9:32 pm

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  It’s from a YouTube video that has nothing to do with my blog. I’ll contact support privately.

  Thank you!

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  raincoaster · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 9:54 pm

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  @irisoniris No, I wasn’t.

  Volunteers can’t help without knowing which referrer it is. Could be a number of legit things, but without the specific link, we can’t tell.

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  timethief · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 9:57 pm

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  I have not seen any change to this.

  andrewspittle
  Staff
  Jun 8, 2011, 5:45 PM

  Thanks for reporting this. In the future, we appreciate it if you can send in spam referrer reports as a private contact. Thanks! https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/reporting-spam-referrals?replies=2

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  timethief · Member · Aug 30, 2013 at 10:00 pm

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  I also bookmarked this thread:
  hanni
  Jun 8, 2011, 5:52 AM
  In the future, please contact us via http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/ and file a private request (if the option presents itself) to report these, as we don’t want to provide any further publicity for the spammers. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/harmful-referrer?replies=2#post-621257