Log: Links from External Pages

[melaniejk]

Hi. I use CPanel to check the stats and such for my web site.
There is a section called: Links from an external page (other web sites except search engines).

Every now and again I look at that list to see who's linking to me and how much traffic they are sending. Well, there is this adult site that is listed here. I clicked on it twice now because I wanted to see who in the world put a link there ( I sure didn't ask for one). Each time I try to visit the page my virus protection software says that I got a Trojan Virus from the site. So, I immediately close the site and follow the steps suggested by the software to remove it.

I don't want my link on a page that is giving people a virus. And, from the url of the site it isn't a place that I'd want my link on even if it didn't have a virus problem. Any suggestions on what to do?

Thank you.

[CMA]

Hi Melanie!
I think thats a case of so called referer spamming. I am quite sure that there is nowhere a link to you on these pages, they are just smapping the logs for visitors and backlinks because quite many people leave their logfiles open for the public, so its brings them links for their most times not legal sites.
If you didnt ask for the link and its a site not relevant to you, its in most cases logfile-spamming. Ignore it, analyse your real referes and help them:-)
Greetings David

[melaniejk]

Thank you for the info David.
I never heard of that before.

[smindsrt]

Funny that this topic is brought up.

I too use cpanel and was looking through my logs yesterday 8/21. I came across a link from a web sites statistical page. I noticed that my site was the number one referral of links to this pharmacy site. WTF......

I never linked to this site.

I think it is funny that I have access to that sites statistics. It sounds like this might happen often but it is a first for me. :furious:

MY2C

[jocelyn]

If you click on a link of your Cpanel log, you send a referer info (your Cpanel page) to the other dude. He gets this in his logs and if he clicks it, it often brings him to your stats (like you described). It's safer to do a copy shortcut from your stats page and paste it to your IE. This way he just gets a nice IP and no referer.

[melaniejk]

How can I tell if my log file are open to the public?
I just assumed that no one but me could see them.

[smindsrt]

[QUOTE=jocelyn]If you click on a link of your Cpanel log, you send a referer info (your Cpanel page) to the other dude. He gets this in his logs and if he clicks it, it often brings him to your stats (like you described). It's safer to do a copy shortcut from your stats page and paste it to your IE. This way he just gets a nice IP and no referer.[/QUOTE]


Even if you have this password protected?

[jocelyn]

Those I found like this obvioulsy did not.

[CMA]

You can most times test this if you search for your sites in google, then you most times can see a bot list, like this: http://stats.voorheenbakkerijsengers.nl/site_200309.html
http://stats.mosep.nl/usage_200309.html

Are for example public statistics, most times the webmasters dont know this.
But some even link der statistics pages providing got PR to them.
These type of referer spam is most times used in weblogs.
I got my own stats password-protected, this should work fine if you use the right passwords (security) and don't give the URL out.
There are also great tools for logfile analysis available that you can do offline, not so comfortable but you are sure that nobody sees it.
Link, hopefully helpful for you:
http://www.komar.org/faq/scumbags/referrer-log-spamming/