Getting Referrals From Someplace We'd Rather Not

[Don1]

Don't know if this is the place for this but here I go.

We have a site that is growing and becoming busy. We have an issue that has me stumped. We're getting referrals from several adult content sites (read xxx). As our family run business is focused on products for childrens education it has us a bit worried. Is it malicious? Is it a misdirected IPAddress? Is it something else?

Apparently, the visitors that do come to our site via these links (which I cannot find) enter at our index and turn tail once they see where they are. They do not go any further into the site. The referrals (as seen in our logs) have been growing for several months and now there are several per day.

So, what are my options? What do you suggest?

[trampt]

If its in your referrals is SHOULD tell you which domain name its coming from. If there are no actual links on the page, then they are spamming your referral logs in order to have you click their links when you check your stats.

You should be fine if you can't find the actual backlinks.

[Don1]

then they are spamming your referral logs in order to have you click their links when you check your stats.

I've never heard of this. How often does this happen? Are they just clicking on our site? Seems like a waste of time for a real business. Should I try to ban their IP Address?

Oh, checked your site. Is that you in Kenmore? Interesting stuff.

[pdxi]

Sometimes, "adult" web sites have a front page with two links: "Yes, I am 18 or older", "No, I am not 18 or older". The latter typically links to yahoo or disney, or whatever else.

This site may have linked to your site as the "No, I am not 18 or older" link. Have you checked to see exactly where these visitors are being referred from?

[tke71709]

It's just referral spam, there is nothing you can do about it and it really isn't worth worrying about.

[Trevelyan]

My site is non-adult and I see plenty of these URLs in my logs every day.

It's nothing to worry about.

[subnet_rx]

Yep, same here. They fill up my logs and it's a lot worse if you have a blog. I really don't know where my traffic really comes from and would be embarrassed to show these logs if I ever tried to sell a site because of referral spam.