I kind of wish the following referral spam had shown up in October so that I could have had a Halloween themed commentary. Instead it arrived in the middle of September. But hey, the undead always show up at the most unwelcome of times – sometimes repeatedly. At the time of writing this, http : // jetsli . de / crawler has shown up fourteen times in my Blogger stats for the day.
Using my trusty virtual machine running Windows XP, I checked out the link safely. Remember kids, don’t try this at home!
What showed up was a classic dead domain, which was mildly disappointing. Since the spammer had let the domain lapse, there wasn’t much evidence of what kind of money making scheme had been involved.
So I clicked on a couple of links anyway.
Yeah, this is typical placeholder pseudo search engine page of links that domain sellers put up in place of defunct websites. Perhaps the original spam had something to do with jet ski’s or ocean front property. Yeah, I’m guessing wildly here.
But maybe the domain seller is shady? So I checked that out too. Nope, Sedo is a legitimate business selling domain registrations like GoDaddy does. In this particular case, the German version of their website shows up.
So not a lot exciting is to be found here. Maybe there was a ponzi scheme involving rentals of jet ski’s in Northern Germany. Probably not, but it sounds better than most spam offers.
Instead we have is a dead domain that may have hosted spam or perhaps a web spider for harvesting blog addresses in the past. Currently, it hosts nothing so it is no threat. Still, don’t bother clicking on it in case that changes in the future.
9 comments:
all of a sudden my blog traffic shot up by a factor of six or seven. I know I listed my site on a few new places BUT is THAT the reason? Would like to know if referring links are spam. I Google them but get either 'could not be found' or nebulous meaningless stuff ..anybody know if www-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com is spam? ... Torture not knowing. I NEVER click on links. When they gonna disappear? Much thanks... Billy
Billy - I tried using variations that link you typed but it only gets an error message from Google. I've seen things somewhat like that string in Analytics.
There has been a lot of referral spam showing up this week, but I don't know what your normal traffic numbers are. It is possible you are getting more legit traffic if you have been promoting your blog.
Truly appreciate you kind reply. My stats shot from an average of 250/day to ten times that over night... saw many spam URLs and 'legit; URls that spam can ride in on. Now spam disappeared for last three days but appears to be back today... ourmeets and that jetsli thing. Most big site execs (those who carry my blog) think spam concern is a joke. they think we're just 'playing' school here. YOUR BOG is one of the few places we can find a sympathetic voice and useful information. THANK YOU!
Billy - You are very welcome.
There is a something of a class division emerging on the Web with the small website operators being ignored in favor of the big corporate brands. Check out the Google subforums dedicated forums at www.webmasterworld.com for an idea of the frustration being felt.
And I should note that those "small" websites are much larger than ours.
Meanwhile, it's growing harder to tell what's going on with website stats now that "Do Not Track" in browsers and keywords used to find a site are often hidden in Google stats, ostensibly over privacy concerns. As a result, finding out who is visiting and why is getting harder.
Between that and the fake referrals, folks with small websites are operating in the dark more and more. I'm glad I'm not trying to make any money off of this blog!
Just found this post after googling the jetsli address that appeared on my brand new blog today - I would guess about half the traffic on my existing blog comes from these spam sites the majority of which, if blogger stats are to be believed, are originating in China, Russia and Eastern Europe. It's very frustrating, annoying and disheartening and mucks my stats up totally. What is the actual point of them doing it?
Anthea - It's all about money, of course. Those sites sell off links culled from visits or profit from ads displayed or ask up front for payments that will supposedly help your web presence.The worst of the sites spread malware for similar reasons.
Organized crime is behind the slicker sites while fly by night script kiddies looking to rip off people are responsible for a smaller percentage.
I know it is frustrating, but keep blogging and think about using Google Analytics or StatCounter to keep track of visits. They both do a better job of filtering out referral spam, though they aren't perfect. That's where checking things out before clicking comes in so you've already learned the best defense against this garbage coming in.
I search for this weird jetsli thing and found your blog too. Thanks for that Patrick. So this thing just mucks around with our stats and also maybe try to get money out of it right? I have Google Analytics running for my blog too. Does this happen frequently? This is the first time it has happened after 2 months of blogging.
Maverick - This kind of thing is pretty regular for blogs, big or small. The longer your blog is around the more you'll see it.
Essentially the bots used deposit the fake referral and hope you'll click on it to check out who checked you out. Enough people do for them to make money off of ads served up or to try to sell you something. Usually that's all there is to it.
I should also note that while Analytics does a much better job at filtering out spam referrals, some do sneak through at times.
Dear Patrick - Thanks for clarifying re. jetsli and bringing me peace of mind! I'm relieved to know it's meaningless. :)
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