I’ve noticed a small number of referrers claiming a link came from http://www.bwdow.com/newsites.php?category=newsites however if you go there you won’t find any link to your page. I put it down to yet another referral link spammer. Usually I just add the ip (or ip range) to my firewall and be done with it – but these guys had many different IPs which suggested it wasn’t some automated spamming engine.
It was obvious they were not valid click throughs because they were HEAD requests, e.g:
www.pgregg.com 81.213.243.127 – – [05/Jul/2006:05:47:34 +0100] "HEAD / HTTP/1.0" 200 – "http://www.bwdow.com/newsites.php?category=newsites" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-" "-"
So, today it all came to a HEAD (pardon the pun) and I went looking for them and it seems that they openly admit to using referral spamming (under the thin disguise of claiming their reviewers must have clicked across to your great site).
See this google cache of their presently broken forum.
During my searches I also came across another reference to them in a thetopsites.net referrer spammer blacklist and noticed a new form of referral spam thievery which I shall look at in my next post.
Feel free to add the following IPs to your firewall to blacklist these BWDOW jokers.
Code:
plop:pgregg/p3-~apache/logs-431%->fgrep www.bwdow.com access_log | cut -d -f2 | sort -n | uniq -c | sort -rn | ip2hostname.php 33 208.98.1.192 (No-RDNS-Record) 3 81.213.244.165 (dsl.dynamic81213244165.ttnet.net.tr) 3 66.90.92.192 (usr1-114.sharktech.net) 2 85.96.246.224 (dsl.dynamic8596246224.ttnet.net.tr) 2 85.96.132.72 (dsl.dynamic859613272.ttnet.net.tr) 2 85.96.132.32 (dsl.dynamic859613232.ttnet.net.tr) 2 85.96.132.165 (dsl.dynamic8596132165.ttnet.net.tr) 2 85.106.221.178 (dsl85-106-56754.ttnet.net.tr) 2 85.106.219.204 (dsl85-106-56268.ttnet.net.tr) 2 85.101.68.231 (85.101.68.231) 2 85.100.0.155 (dsl.dynamic851000155.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.246.190 (dsl.dynamic81213246190.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.246.16 (dsl.dynamic8121324616.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.243.127 (dsl.dynamic81213243127.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.242.70 (dsl.dynamic8121324270.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.242.57 (dsl.dynamic8121324257.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.242.38 (dsl.dynamic8121324238.ttnet.net.tr) 2 81.213.242.169 (dsl.dynamic81213242169.ttnet.net.tr) 1 88.226.161.218 (dsl88-226-41434.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.99.91.55 (dsl.dynamic85999155.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.99.91.29 (dsl.dynamic85999129.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.99.91.1 (dsl.dynamic8599911.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.99.150.70 (dsl.dynamic859915070.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.99.150.22 (dsl.dynamic859915022.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.97.179.67 (dsl.dynamic859717967.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.97.144.139 (dsl.dynamic8597144139.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.97.144.10 (dsl.dynamic859714410.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.96.76.232 (dsl.dynamic859676232.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.96.133.148 (dsl.dynamic8596133148.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.96.133.108 (dsl.dynamic8596133108.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.96.132.248 (dsl.dynamic8596132248.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.96.103.27 (dsl.dynamic859610327.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.107.131.9 (dsl85-107-33545.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.107.129.212 (dsl85-107-33236.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.107.129.131 (dsl85-107-33155.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.106.223.192 (dsl85-106-57280.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.106.219.5 (dsl85-106-56069.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.106.219.153 (dsl85-106-56217.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.106.218.237 (dsl85-106-56045.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.104.231.205 (dsl85-104-59341.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.104.226.241 (dsl85-104-58097.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.104.226.18 (dsl85-104-57874.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.103.43.3 (85.103.43.3) 1 85.103.41.84 (85.103.41.84) 1 85.103.41.133 (85.103.41.133) 1 85.103.41.106 (85.103.41.106) 1 85.102.119.30 (dsl85-102-30494.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.102.118.150 (dsl85-102-30358.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.101.70.220 (85.101.70.220) 1 85.101.70.17 (85.101.70.17) 1 85.101.68.243 (85.101.68.243) 1 85.101.66.97 (85.101.66.97) 1 85.101.65.113 (85.101.65.113) 1 85.100.3.186 (dsl.dynamic851003186.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.100.202.138 (dsl.dynamic85100202138.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.100.200.79 (dsl.dynamic8510020079.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.100.2.61 (dsl.dynamic85100261.ttnet.net.tr) 1 85.100.1.90 (dsl.dynamic85100190.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.247.227 (dsl.dynamic81213247227.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.247.2 (dsl.dynamic812132472.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.246.57 (dsl.dynamic8121324657.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.246.21 (dsl.dynamic8121324621.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.246.199 (dsl.dynamic81213246199.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.246.1 (dsl.dynamic812132461.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.245.140 (dsl.dynamic81213245140.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.244.39 (dsl.dynamic8121324439.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.243.67 (dsl.dynamic8121324367.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.243.200 (dsl.dynamic81213243200.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.243.176 (dsl.dynamic81213243176.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.243.143 (dsl.dynamic81213243143.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.242.5 (dsl.dynamic812132425.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.241.171 (dsl.dynamic81213241171.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.90 (dsl.dynamic8121324090.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.68 (dsl.dynamic8121324068.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.25 (dsl.dynamic8121324025.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.155 (dsl.dynamic81213240155.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.153 (dsl.dynamic81213240153.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.150 (dsl.dynamic81213240150.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.149 (dsl.dynamic81213240149.ttnet.net.tr) 1 81.213.240.117 (dsl.dynamic81213240117.ttnet.net.tr) |
I thought I’d make a post showing the cache of the Google cache, just in case it goes away. Had to make a HTML to BBCode converter in the process, not perfect, but works well enough.
<BASE HREF="http://www.bwdow.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-3.html"><table border=1 width=100%><tr><td><table border=1 bgcolor=#ffffff cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0 width=100% color=#ffffff><tr><td>This is G o o g l e‘s cache of http://www.bwdow.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-3.html as retrieved on 30 Jun 2006 08:03:53 GMT.
G o o g l e‘s cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the web.
The page may have changed since that time. Click here for the current page without highlighting.
This cached page may reference images which are no longer available. Click here for the cached text only.To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url:
<center>Google is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content.</center></td></tr></table></td></tr></table>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html dir="ltr" lang="en">
<head>
<title>Referal Spam [Archive] – BWDOW FORUMS</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.bwdow.com/forum/archive/archive.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div class="pagebody">
<div id="navbar">BWDOW FORUMS > OTHER FORUMS > GENERAL CHAT > Referal Spam</div>
<div class="pda">PDA</div>
<p class="largefont">View Full Version : Referal Spam</p>
Care to explain how your website has appear in my referrer logs, twice now? ( bwdow.com/newsites.php?category=newsites ) Upon checking your website for any link, there is none present? If you’re starting another web gallery page, great… If you think you’re going to market it by using the ploy of low-life spammers and using referrer spam, perhaps you’re not going to succeed.
I too would like to know how this site showed up as a referral to my site, when I can not see ANY links what-so-ever on here linking to my site.
I do believe this site is engaging in the practice of referall spamming, trying to boost it’s page rank and get people to visit by spamming their logs.
Arbin: Don’t use swearwords. It’s forbidden.
It’s a way of promotion. When our operators visits a page our system links all pages to bwdow.com/newsites.php?category=newsites o, if we visit some siteit automatically sends referrals.
If you don’t want to see this you can ignore it in .htaccess file.
It is a pathetic method of promotion. You promote your site not by SPAMMING logs, but by content. From what I can see, the list of websites with excellent designs is quite high, so why then do you feel the need to be a spammer?
You do NOT promote by using logs. It is unethical, and it is a violation of your terms of usage with not only your service provider, but also a violation of the ISP from which you connect. I am forwarding this forum log (and a text version in case you think you’re smart and delete this) to your hosting company.
Spam is wrong. It costs bandwidth, it costs money, time and aggravation. If I were you, I would cease and desist from any and all future "optimization" promotions.
We don’t delete posts cause of this kind of issues. We don’t use spamming politics we are just using our own webpage to launch web sites. And yes this is a promotion. I don’t think so much people are seeing it. [ Just good ones
This brings very little traffic to us. We are using ads to bring traffic to our site.
We will talk it at our administration meeting.
Thanks for your advices.
Hi,
I came here the same way but I’m not winging. I had a decent surf around the websites, spotted a few things I can use myself and signed up for the forums because they look like they have been laid out with a little knowledge on what is valid.
Hope you do Ok BWDOW
How about a Google Maps Forum? We like them
Thank you very much risingfree.
As you see we have opened our forums very newly. We will add forums in future days.
I haven’t followed up with my complaints in regards to this website, but this morning after seeing yet another bogus referall link, I do believe I am.
I do not want your website in MY LOGS. These are logs noone else sees but myself.
We will talk it at our administration meeting.
Thanks for your advices.
Do you really need a meeting to decide to stop such a despicable and pathetic act? From the number of negative posts you have deleted (including mine), it should be obvious that what you are doing is wrong.
This site is run by a someone with 13 yr old moral values.
Do you really need a meeting to decide to stop such a despicable and pathetic act? From the number of negative posts you have deleted (including mine), it should be obvious that what you are doing is wrong.
This site is run by a someone with 13 yr old moral values.
Deleting your post is cause of argot language. You can not use argot at here. Especially againt this site.
You wouldn’t have so many upset people if you wouldn’t spam logs with false referrers. Do yourself a favor, stop this practice.
I have seen this site by same way. I am happy to find this kind of site. Thank you bwdow crew.
Arbin: If you don’t like this site you can just walk away and ignore your site statics.
That’s what i would do.
Although I may find your site somewhat interesting, I in no way think what you are doing is ethical. As a matter of fact it makes me think that your company is desperate and cannot generate legitimate clicks by SEO optimization or purchasing advertising through Google or Yahoo. I will not click on any of your links for generating income. Do your customers know that you are using this unscrupulous method of generating traffic to your site? If you are reporting these "clicks" as legitimate traffic to your customers then you are misinforming them.
At any rate this will be my only communication with you and I would hope that at one of your meetings you would agree to cease these practices.
Very lame.
Hi,
I also found this site by way of this so-called "referal spam". I have no idea how you are doing it but I can imagine that it could be quite annoying for people who do not wish to view the content of your site.
I suggest you only target people who are interested in what this site has to offer.
That said, I am interested in your site :p
Having looked in my logs I know exactly how they’re doing it:
208.98.1.192 – – [05/May/2006:08:28:09 -0500] "HEAD / HTTP/1.0" 200 0 "http://www.bwdow.com/newsites.php?category=newsites" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"
Luckily a HEAD request won’t waste bandwidth (or only a tiny amount) but chances are it will waste processing power when it’s a dynamic script.
Please cease and desist this act of spamming, as spam is against the Terms of Service of every (reputable) host and can potentially get your account terminated.
Also I find your ‘excuse’ dubious, as the referral spam on my forums occurs around ten minutes away from any other access of any form in my logs.
I have founded this site by the same way. But i am happy to find here. I have found lots of high quality web sites at bwdow and in fact i really inspired from these web sites. I believe that there must be more sites like bwdow. This will bring more quality to web designers community.
I am also periodically visiting this forum. Its nice to find people interesting with same issues with you.
On the plus side, the spam seems to have stopped. On the minus side, there’s still been no reply as to why the webmaster feels it necessary and appropriate to resort to such despicable procedures as opposed to legitimately building up links and real referrals.
As you know there are some tools for webmasters at our webpage. They are being used for different objectives. When a query send to this tools they check if domain is dead or something else. To make this our scripts uses "head" function which doesn’t spends your bandwith. It is less then 1kb for each check. They are sending same referral. We have discussed this too much and decided to not changing it. People can easily ignore bwdow if they don’t like it.
<div id="copyright">vBulletin v3.5.3, Copyright �2000-2006, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.</div>
These assholes have been spamming me for months, fuck them.