Referrer spam-how do I stop it?

[Catalyst-X]

I have a site which is just getting hammered by refferer spam (crap sites showing up in logs - hoping I will click on them or something - ie strapon.blog.) Its chewing up resources, how can I block it or nip it in the bud?
Does anyone else get this problem?

[mresell]

Originally Posted by Catalyst-X

I have a site which is just getting hammered by refferer spam (crap sites showing up in logs - hoping I will click on them or something - ie strapon.blog.) Its chewing up resources, how can I block it or nip it in the bud?
Does anyone else get this problem?

This has come up before. Try using htaccess...if your on windows
not all the techniques may work w/ htprotect. Do a search for htaccess here...I put some examples of commands there.

[Catalyst-X]

Mresell,
I looked at other posts and couldn't find what I needed.
I guess I am after something that will filter based on header information of refferer.
I am coming across form windows to unix mresell can you help me get started on what I would put in the .htaccess file?

Thanks

[Catalyst-X]

Hmmmm....
Looking at the logs I am seeing many hits on an old cms system which used url rewrite (/index.php/learningcentre/) these are now defaulting to my home page...
Can I turn url rewrite off in htaccess?
That would stop a lot of it defaulting back to my homepage of index.php

Thanks

[newmem]

I had a similar problem when a junk site had linked to my site and was getting a lot of visitors.

I added an include file in my main page that would check the referrer and if it was in my blacklist, it would redirect the visitor to a very small sized HTML page with a lot of exit-popups.

getURL = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
(this is how to know who is the referer, takes a bit more coding to match with the blacklist)

That way, I benefit from the bad traffic by earning credits in pop-up exchanges and thus gain good traffic. Saves bandwidth from junk sites and earns me good visitors.

hope this helps...

however, if the referrer changes each time then it will not work in your case.

[mresell]

Here is the thread. http://forum.vortechhosting.com/showthread.php?t=10664
Could Also use something like
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} badreferer\.com I think it would be better if you didn't turn it off since it is so useful. Try these first.