Unwanted Traffic
For the past few days, the traffic sources tab in my dashboard shows that I have been receiving a lot of traffic from this site –
777seo.com / 282 hits
I googled a bit on it and came to know that it is a blocked/blacklisted site by google. What makes me even more worried is the fact that a few days back google had taken my entire blog down due to some malware reporting and suspicious intrusion and I had to change my password and go through the authentication process to get it up and running again. And now this problem…
I am continuously receiving traffic from the above site and the numbers are increasing by the day. What should I do? Any precautions that I should take?
I haven’t a clue of all these things Any idea, anyone?
It's referer spam. Nobody is accessing your blog, and nobody knows about the link but you.1. Don't click on the links.2. Don't publish your access log.3. Wait until Google blocks the traffic.
The above content is from google's forums.
I did click on the link once initially, but not after that :( And what does the second point mean?
Third point is fine.
May be the list of incoming traffic links, here. But mostly access log refers to the information about the various times at which we logged into our account.
Even I did not understand what those sentences meant. That content was taken from here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=715dc38e0c31b671&hl=en
Unfortunately, even that page doesn't answer your question.
i wonder where to find access logs for blogspot lol
I think the second point meant do not post the links in any public forum as someone else might click that too.
My advise never click on a link you are not sure of ,I never check traffic on my Blogspot never, I just read the blog stats , I only trust Fickr where I have my Pro account , I have clicked links or referrers and never faced a problem as yet..and Flickr has a safe fool proof sysytem, because I am paying for it US$25 PER YEAR.
I am really sorry the problems you have faced , I once had my ste hacked at Buzznet Wordpress so I know what you must have gone through.. and Flickr is only good if you are a photoblogger and have money to buy the Pro account..
I had stopped using Blogspot for quite a long time now I crossblog here from Flickr..
Take Care
Point very well noted, I will be more careful with links I dont trust.. Your soothing words made me feel much better, thanks for your reply Sir..
I too occassionally receive a few visits just as you have. And, I too just like you, out of curisoity check out to know the reason behind getting traffic from that site. And after visiting the site, I don't find my site name listed there and on some sites I see a scrolling list of websites at the bottom. May be they are automated robots visiting your site.
Have a look at this page: http://www.brettb.com/ASP_StoppingWebRobots.asp
The first few paragraphs might help you understand your problem.
I did go thro that link Ranjith.. though I cant confirm on how much of it actually went in my head So do you think we can classify this problem as a robot problem? And should I just wait about it or do I need to do something from my side as well?
Never mind... I wonder if even I understood anything. Placing unnecessary restrictions on robots may also harm, for even Google uses robots to crawl our site. I think it is better to leave it as it is and as others have pointed out, do not click any links that appear suspicious.
Ok, thanks again Ranjith... lets just stick to what we know - blogging :)
Yes, that's the best thing to do instaed of spoiling things that are working fine now.
I dint know that I should not be clicking it, obviously, otherwise i would have never done that Yea, the dots do seem to be connecting, the blog going down before and this..
You faced a virus attack on 2050 files And you removed it MANUALLY! You are great Hemal! But atleast, now I know whom to bug if ever I am going to face a similar situation
Thnaks for the reply, got a fair bit of idea of what can happen and what's goin on... but really speaking, all this is very scary for me!
I'm now getting a doubt if someone can remove viruses manually... that too from 2050 files and not 2049 or 2051...
@Arti I had removed all of those manually.. but there was a trick! it was painful, to keep a track of the files but otherwise it was all not too taxing. even one file having the code and it spreads again. I kept my site down for about a week. and yes, i will be happy to help you but god forbid you face that situation. It is scary, but you gotta get to understand all these things. It matters... really when you are in the open world wide web.
@DS thanks for the suggestion :P but yeah, only one knows the pain who went through it.. :)
@Ranjith dude! it wasnt a fake amt, please read it well.. i said "about 2050" coz the amt was around 2040+ and i dont remember it exactly.
@ranjith not "about 2050" i wrote "close to 2050"
@ Hemal So we have someone who can cure one's site or blog from a virus if it gets attacked. I have seen only the phrase "all the 2050" and not "close to 2050"
Anyway, that was a great job.
Gosh! My head is whirring Hopefully, I will slowly pick up all these things from all you poeple around... Till then, however... forum zindabad :P
@Hemal - If it was the iframe attack I know the pain
@ Arti , Even i received a lot of traffic from the same source and some other urls (directing towards same 777seo.com about two days back , but now its okay . Even i clicked on the link , lucky me actually nothing went wrong at least till now . Thanks to people who have replied will never click on the urls given by traffic source from blogger stats .
Nothing has gone wrong for me too till now. Ya we should be careful of clicking such links in future...
i also had similar doubts.
you are using blogspot, blogspot is owned by google, so it knows you are not doing anything personally malicious on blogspot. unless your pc/laptop is infected by some malware/virus and it has your passwords now.
Thanks a lot chaitanya.. Never knew abt this thing. I keep doing deep scans regularly, still will do it once again today itself to remove any malwares from my PC if any..
Arti, even if you receive links on your mail box you should avoid clicking it, i just received one stating that google application is tracking your location on the mobile, so when i checked the email address it was sent by friendster cleverly masking it as google. Thus all the unrecognised links are safe not to be accessed. Luckily google has an authentication process
Oh bad news is that this link is featuring in my blogspot traffic source 206 hits, how did you manage to get rid of it Arti ? Only by authentication process or through back up and restore
Yes Umeshji true... untrustes links shud be avoided... a lesson well learnt now..
Oh, its featuring for you too, seems like all travel blogs were tagetted! I did nothing Umeshji, as suggested to me by others. It is still showing in my stats board and am waiting for google to remove it for me.
I hope three other side kick links too vanish, luckily 777seo.com the main link is not visible today. I hope google removes the virus producing link from our blogspot. There is a special feature in the blogspot, which is termed as back up and restore, any idea when this feature has to be used.
Sorry Umeshji, but I have never used it.. I think its got something to do with the template...
http://www.searchpeack.com/run.php?user=martyxmas , have recieved some more unwanted traffic today from the above mentioned link .
Oh Yes!! ME too! Just checked.. Close to 130 hits!
Anyone else facing a similar situation? Umeshji?
136 hits .
Now i am scared to click on any links Lolz, today luckily i don t have any visits from 777.seo.com but some other minor links visit is prevalent. Hope they too will fade away
Sorry for the link ,
I am a food blogger and my blog also gets such unwanted traffic from many links. Any suggestions to get rid of such unwanted referring links ?
A small doubt: How can visiting those links bring my site down. If it does so, is cross site scripting use? Even in that case, most of the time, the browser asks for our permission.
And, if I am really interested in visiting that viisting, can I log out of all my accounts, clear my browser's cookies and then visit that site? Will that do any harm ?
You could create a .htaccess file within your web-directory and could add the following code to block the unwanted traffic
order deny, allow
deny IP address of Domain
Allow all
Example:
Order deny, allow
deny 198.123.23.23
deny 198.100.*.*
allow all
A little late here, but nevertheless in a similar situation of some unwanted 777seo.com, goo.gl. t.co visitors to the blog
Can anybody check if all blogger users are having the same issue or only those with Indi accounts? (Well, I'm not blaming Indi but just an instinct...?)
All's well till all of us are in the well
Another thing is that generally I don't refer to the stats shown on blogger (nor click on any of the links), rather I prefer the more trusted google analytics that gives me authentic information
two relevant threads i found on the blogger help forums.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=02996e001d4da596&hl=en
and
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=5dfd97c0c3e5dada&hl=en
Hope this helps.
I am sure there are many other similar threads as well. Enter diffferent keywords in the search on the help forums to view them.
@ abhi, one of the unwanted link i recieved today is college/nitecruzr/net , and person name (nitecruzr) in your link is same
Extremely Sorry for my late reply here
Many Thanks all for the info and related help.. I think the problem is sorted out now and the links have all gone
I very much appreaciate all your concerns and assistance... Thank you @everyone
Have recieved more unwanted traffic today also from a different link .
Same here +favorite 777seo/com also . But these clicks are not being counted in page impressions of Google adsense .
Arti, I too have been getting those exact same 3 links. They are registering higher on my traffic list than my top referrers which is how I noticed. I'm sure google with notice and remedy it soon. I'm not a travel blogger and I havent seen the 777seo either. I checked google analytics for my site and they aren't even mentioned. It's weird.
@Kristy Yeah, same is the case here.. Try sending a feedback to blogger as Uma suggested.
Hello fellow bloggers,
I sent a feedback to Blogger about this issue of unwanted traffic with my blog and the next day all those links just disappeared. Its been a week now and luckily no more unwanted links.
Ok, then will do it too But, I do hope it has not caused any damage, as pointed out by Hemal in his previous reply... Thanks for the reply Uma :)
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