Wednesday, September 25, 2013

blogger public service announcement...

hey folks... I'm sure some of you know about this already... but if you go to your stats page and see multiple views from places with weird names... like  'vampirestat,' 'adsensewatchdog' 'zombiestat' 'uglystat' etc... there's too many to actually list here, and there's new ones everyday.  Don't click on the links. 

At best, you'll be directed to a page of ads.  At worst, you'll be infected with malware or a rather nasty virus. 

The new blog, Little Goth Bob's World yesterday got 100+ views from these... in the future I shall call them BLOTIA which stands for Bloodsucking Leaches On The Internets Ass, but I fortunately already knew about them so I didn't click. 

They're called Referer Spam, and Google and/or Blogger is unable or unwilling to block them for some reason, and even if they did the name would change and they'd be back in the space of 15 minutes.  Even though it messes with your counts on the Stat Page, they are able to exclude the numbers when it comes to your AdSense page and Google ratings, so it doesn't affect that if your worried about it. 

If you really need to check or track your stats, there are a few widgets out there to do it.  They have no problem blocking these sites... hmmmm.  

Now, while I kinda understand what they are... here's a link that explains it a lot better than I can...

Spam Spoiler, a blogger on BlogSpot who knows his stuff.

The basic advice is this.  Don't click on them.  Ther're not actually reading your page, they're not actually going to your blog, they're not actually sending anyone to your blog.  As to the stats... it's an annoyance, but it's not harming you, and since it doesn't touch your adsense or google ratings, it's not costing you anything.  (which is probably why google isn't pursuing it) and unless you click the link, it doesn't really have anyway to get you. 

It's annoying, because I like to see if anyone is viewing my posts.  These numbers are confusing and they generally make the stat page totally useless. 

As a general rule... don't click on any of the links on the stat page.  If you really want to get on my blog, or anyone elses, do it from your link list, your followers list, or favorites list. 

announcement over.
 

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