From Russia with love

Seawitchartist · 9-5-11, 11:44 AM

Am I alone in this or is it everyone,this past six months or so an ever increasing number of Russian websites are turning up as visitors in my stats, 30 visits between 7 of them so far, most are selling cars, Viagra or people who want to marry me

Autoload · 9-5-11, 01:50 PM

Not a problem for me. I block all IP blocks from Russia and other eastern block countries as well as China and Korea.

Seawitchartist · 9-6-11, 06:56 PM

I'm too thick to do that Autoload, I can't even block the schweinhund 'Bigfinder.de

**Jim M** · 9-10-11, 10:35 PM

The Russian sites are trying to boost their search-engine rankings. Google treats links from Site X to Site Y as a "vote" for Site Y. What the Russian are exploiting is that on some hosting providers, the stats pages are part of the site and accessible to all. So, if they appear as a referrer to Site X on the stats page, that can be counted as a link to their site, and hence a "vote" for it. This can be bad for Site X, as some search-engines will penalize sites they see as linking to dubious locations - even if, as in this case, it's unwittingly.

On PowWeb, stats pages are not accessible in this way, so don't get crawled by the search engines, and it's not an issue.

Autoload · 9-10-11, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seawitchartist

I'm too thick to do that Autoload, I can't even block the schweinhund 'Bigfinder.de

http://www.countryipblocks.net

Select the countries you want to block (CTRL+Click) and then select".htaccess deny". Finally click the "Get Countries" button and you will be shown file you need to add to your .htaccess file in the window.

**Croc Hunter** · 9-11-11, 06:41 AM

What stats are you running? I know you have been here a long time Seawitchartist and your works have Nordic appeal.

Blocking .ru .es .cn referrer spam countries will also block genuine traffic and potential buyers. As far as spammer stats go, you might as well block .us as well, as the US is in the top five spam origin nations of the world. Powweb hosted stats are under doimain.com/stats/ yours are not publically visible there. You may see from Russia with love but they see no love from you. Being not publically visible, usually you can just ignore them and their bombardment will ease off.

Seawitchartist · 11-19-11, 10:04 AM

Ooops..I hadn't been back a while and missed the activity here! Jim, thanks for that, a relief. Croc, I'm using awstats so I do need to put some work tickets in now and then

I've been getting even more Russians and decided they can keep coming, word has it 'Big finder' isn't actually a bad thing, I was certainly suspicious of it though.
So these Russian visitors are driving traffic my way and basically for nothing? Harrasho!

9-5-11, 11:44 AM	#1
Seawitchartist Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: London Posts: 196 Reputation: 22	From Russia with love Am I alone in this or is it everyone,this past six months or so an ever increasing number of Russian websites are turning up as visitors in my stats, 30 visits between 7 of them so far, most are selling cars, Viagra or people who want to marry me __________________ Never trust statistics unless you fiddled the figures yourself! www.seawitchartist.com

9-5-11, 01:50 PM	#2
Autoload Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: USA - New Jersey Posts: 564 Reputation: 196	Not a problem for me. I block all IP blocks from Russia and other eastern block countries as well as China and Korea. __________________ Autoload WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, Over?

9-6-11, 06:56 PM	#3
Seawitchartist Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: London Posts: 196 Reputation: 22	I'm too thick to do that Autoload, I can't even block the schweinhund 'Bigfinder.de __________________ Never trust statistics unless you fiddled the figures yourself! www.seawitchartist.com

9-11-11, 06:41 AM	#6
Croc Hunter Mod.. with bite.. Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 7,295 Reputation: 442	What stats are you running? I know you have been here a long time Seawitchartist and your works have Nordic appeal. Blocking .ru .es .cn referrer spam countries will also block genuine traffic and potential buyers. As far as spammer stats go, you might as well block .us as well, as the US is in the top five spam origin nations of the world. Powweb hosted stats are under doimain.com/stats/ yours are not publically visible there. You may see from Russia with love but they see no love from you. Being not publically visible, usually you can just ignore them and their bombardment will ease off. __________________ Croc Hunter MSC :

11-19-11, 10:04 AM	#7
Seawitchartist Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: London Posts: 196 Reputation: 22	Ooops..I hadn't been back a while and missed the activity here! Jim, thanks for that, a relief. Croc, I'm using awstats so I do need to put some work tickets in now and then I've been getting even more Russians and decided they can keep coming, word has it 'Big finder' isn't actually a bad thing, I was certainly suspicious of it though. So these Russian visitors are driving traffic my way and basically for nothing? Harrasho! __________________ Never trust statistics unless you fiddled the figures yourself! www.seawitchartist.com

9-10-11, 10:35 PM	#4
Jim M PowWeb Staff Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 93 Reputation: 76	The Russian sites are trying to boost their search-engine rankings. Google treats links from Site X to Site Y as a "vote" for Site Y. What the Russian are exploiting is that on some hosting providers, the stats pages are part of the site and accessible to all. So, if they appear as a referrer to Site X on the stats page, that can be counted as a link to their site, and hence a "vote" for it. This can be bad for Site X, as some search-engines will penalize sites they see as linking to dubious locations - even if, as in this case, it's unwittingly. On PowWeb, stats pages are not accessible in this way, so don't get crawled by the search engines, and it's not an issue.