So I run a referer analysis package on my logs. Partially this is to make sure that nobody’s using my images in their myspace background (this is a popular way to really piss me off on the web) or doing something otherwise antisocial. But also, I like to know who’s talking linking to me in a more cough positive fashion.
Referer spam has been going around for a while. See, some blogs have backlink support where they’ll analyze who’s linking to a site and they’ll generate backlinks automatically. Naturally, since Pagerank is good as money, people like to screw around with it. So I’m kind of used to some of the URLs being clearly spamming attempts for poker or pill sites.
Today, I’ve noticed that they’ve raised the bar. I got a link to a “video site” that appeared to pop up a movie and then proceeds to try and install a “video codec”. In other words, a drive-by download site. Good thing I’ve got an up to date firefox.
Also, while we’re on the subject… Is it just me or has AOL stopped caring about ICQ? I’m getting a large number of ICQ spammers each day and I’m getting none on Yahoo. I guess I need to prod all of the ICQ users I still see online and still care about and decomission my ICQ account.