So I see a Malaysian website on my Blogger stats today and couldn’t resist seeing what the latest spam was. It turned out to be a very interesting place to investigate. An ornate trap is what I would describe ohbelog . com as. At first look it appears to be a social media aggregate site where you can vote up or down on different links.
It’s flashy and oh so modern:
Scrolling down reveals that not a lot of voting is going on and clicking on some of the subsections in the menu nets these results:
Notice anything suspicious yet?
The ads very large and animated, by the way. Some are popups you can’t get out of. I chose one sidebar ad to document and tested others as well. DO NOT CLICK ON THEM!
Most of the ads say that your Adobe Flash is out of date, your media player needs codecs, or best of all, your Flash player is corrupted. I had to click to see what this would bring up. Don’t try that yourself, I’m using a virtual machine running Linux that doesn’t allow access to my real operating system. If something goes wrong, I can simply delete the VM.
Looks legitimate, doesn’t it? A quick search also makes RegClean Pro seem for real. Don’t worry, they are just trying to con you out of money and control of your computer, that’s all. Systweak claims to be a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner but they are not. The whole thing is an adware and malware installing program.
So now we see the reason for Ohbelog, it is a site set up to spread malware and sell fake malware removing software. Do not click on the referral links being left in Blogger from there!
Thanks for the warning about ohbelog. I also do not trust them. Good luck with your cats. My niece also has CFS.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip. I find these crazy referral sites to be incredibly irritating and I'm not especially fond of how they bugger up my stats. I exclude basically any and all numbers from Russia and Ukraine now.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Sorry to read that about your niece, I hope she has a milder case.
ReplyDeleteEmily - Yeah, most of them aren't legit. That's why I rely on StatCounter more and more for location data since they don't record the fake hits. Once in awhile I get a real hit from Russia and just yesterday got one from Poland -- looking for info on Russian spammers!
I have to say that ticking off the entire world is quite an accomplishment.
Dear Patrick, would you know what it means when t.co appears under the page views on my new blog?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Marie
Marie - t.co is the shortened link address used by Twitter to keep under the character limit of the service. It is also used by spammers to hide the real web address a link goes to. I wrote a little about it in a post:
ReplyDeletehttp://from-the-sidelines.blogspot.com/2012/07/blogger-referral-spam-and-twitter.html
Hi Patrick, thanks for your reply with regards to t.co, that appeared on my blog stats. I have barely started writing my blog about child abuse, when I find myself overrun with approximately 100 false hits per day. One of your correspondents recommended a switch to StatCounter. So that is what I am trying to do. These parasitic people behind the bots, like vampirestats, are not able to create their own content, so they exploit people who do.
ReplyDeleteYou are quite incredible in your speedy replies! I am already feeling slightly bedraggled and I barely started my online existence.
Thanks, Marie
Hi Patrick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply with regards to t.co!
Marie
Patrick, the robot check is too difficult to read, Marie
ReplyDeletefinally, one robot check word that I can read. I do not know whether my previous comments went through or not, Marie
ReplyDeleteMarie - At least two went through. I don't like using the security check but I have to thanks to comment spammers. Otherwise they'd overwhelm the comments with links to trash.
ReplyDeleteHang in there, the Internet is like the wild west in that bandits run wild. They say if you keep posting good content people will eventually find it. Unfortunately it is getting harder and harder to get "organic" traffic from Google since they'd like us to pay to advertise our sites.
So keep posting and also you can use Google Webmaster Tools to make sure you are getting indexed:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Thank You very much. I am so tired of all the spammers. My site is fairly new. I am not trying to get a lot of traffic nor do I care for the publicity but writing is a hobby and I would really like it if real people read my articles and gave real feedback. So I feel happy when i see my stats going up only to discover that they are because of spammers ughhhh
ReplyDeleteThank you for your warning. Been getting odd ones like these recently, so trying to make a habit out of checking them on google first. These are really irritating, but at least i can just ignore them.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Sidelines: Ohbelog Referral Spam Hey Patrick. I appreciate you checking out all the spammers on your virtual Linux. From the stats, it seems that only 10% of my visitors are robots -- but I do get all the robots that you've mentioned in these posts. All the best. - Lil
ReplyDeletelil - That sounds about right. I never bothered to calculate percentages.
ReplyDeleteLet's see, if I go by the "referring sites" it covers more page views, so it works out to be 11% spammers this week. If it was by referring links, it would be 22%.
The numbers get lower by looking at the past 30 days, which makes sense given how spam goes through surges. This has been a particularly bad period and actually this year has been worse than last year.
Ugh, another spam site. Thanks so much for warning us about it.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It was in my stats, too. Rather than click the link I Googled the name. I opened your site and not that one. Glad I did.
ReplyDeleteTiffany and Moonbeams - You're welcome!
ReplyDeleteThis is why I Google the "Traffic" from my blog before I click. Thanks a bunch :-)
ReplyDeleteA mi también me ha llegado a mi blog, mil gracias por el aviso!!!!
ReplyDeletethanks Patrick - was wondering what that was.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the warning, the number of these things seems to be on the increase....
ReplyDeleteWell put together info by the way...
Darren & Rob - You're welcome!
ReplyDeleteSomebody left a message on my chat box telling me that I can increase my blog traffic with ohbelog. Thank you for sharing this ^___^
ReplyDeletewww.majoriezoleta.blogspot.com
Marjorie - you're welcome!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Patrick, this is exactly what I needed to know. Thank you for checking these things out and warning people who can not check this out in a safe way for their selves (and their machines).
ReplyDeleteBest regards,
Nana
Thank you Patrick. My blog is brand new, and almost nobody vist it..and yet, I get hit by htis ugly referral spam. Best wishes form Mexico
ReplyDeleteNana and Lady Pat - Glad to be of service.
ReplyDeleteDon't let the spammers bother you too much. I've given up on Blogger stats completely now.
Thank you for that warning - so good of you to take the time :)
ReplyDeleteThis ohbelog just popped up on my stats today. thanks for the heads up! It's people like you that keep our blogs safe and sound from nasty spambots :)
ReplyDeleteTina and Hayleigh - My pleasure. Happy blogging!
ReplyDeleteI'm probably so spammed and malwared up and don't even know it. Don't even know HOW I can find out or do anything. It's a crime what they allow people to do on the web. Thanks for your great site!
ReplyDeleteBilly - You can always download a free for home use malware cleaning program like Spybot Search and Destroy or MalwareBytes. Everyone should occasionally use one of those utilities and a good antivirus program on a monthly basis.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the referral spam goes, just don't let it get to you too much. It's nothing compared to what I find in the spam folders of my email!