Web page gurus, please

Marsha Cassada · May 28, 2015

I am web master for our state button society. I don't check the web stats very often, but today I did. I wonder if someone who is web literate can explain something to me.

Under "links from external pages, other web sites except search engines" there is a whole list. Other than the button related sites, I cannot imagine how they could be connected to my oklahoma button society.org page. Our domain host is based in the UK. We've been with them for about 15 years.

Does anyone else who has a web site have these links occurring? There are dozens of hits from Russia, Ukraine, some South American countries like Paraguay. There have always been some hits but this time there were a lot.

I am thinking I need to contact them and find out what is going on.

Debby - LB · May 28, 2015

most all of those are bots, spam bots -referral spamming. They crawl your pages it's not valid traffic. The .htaccess file on your server controls who can and cannot access your site, it’s the best option to stop this kind of Referrer Spam but if you aren't comfortable with modifying that you can filter them out using Google analytics. You'll be way better off using the .htaccess file though because that will prevent spam bots from hitting your server altogether... I want them gone and not using my server resources. Spam bots are a huge PIMA, it's constant updating because after a while they change their names and hit you again.

Marsha Cassada · May 28, 2015

Just got a note back from the domain host, with the information you talk about:

Those are Referrer Spam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referer_spam). It is a way to improve their SEO. You can block it in the .htaccess file, but it has to be done on a domain by domain basis:

When my computer guru gets home tonight, we will deal with this. Why don't those creeps get a life?

Debby - LB · May 28, 2015

exactly. that's what makes it so bad, you have to manually add each one and like I said eventually you'll have to re-add them because they'll change names. LOL I don't think they'll get a life anytime soon....or it seems that way

Marsha Cassada · May 29, 2015

My guru worked on it and couldn't figure it out yet, so has emailed the domain host tech. He will figure it out.

Our domain host was absorbed into a larger company about 3 years ago and it's harder to use their new format. I think they are now geared more toward professional web users and not regular folk. They have lots of technical graphs on the control panel, and offer lots more web-use options.

The old company had this great piece of pie graphic with slices representing what had been viewed on the website. So easy to see at a glance what had been viewed and how often! The new one is more concerned with how/when/where viewers got to the site. I am more interested in what the viewer found interesting, so I can add or remove things that don't generate interest, than I am in what robot they used.

Those links have to go, though. Once my husband figures it out, I will be able to keep it maintained.